Politician: Same-Sex Marriage Is Cause of COVID

An aspiring Scottish politician put his foot squarely in his mouth this month when he claimed that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic could be caused by same-sex marriages.

Independent Scottish parliament candidate Peter Tait told The Shetland Times he believes the virus is "possibly related" to same-sex marriage. Tait said that he believes this because of his faith and wants to represent "things that God would want me to represent."

Tait, a former mussel farmer, knew that his comment would cause backlash. Some of that negative response came from Kerrie Meyer, the founder of ShetlandLGBTQ.org.uk, who said that Tait should "get back in his primeval hole." She also added that "it is obvious to any sane and educated person that Mr. Tait is clearly an idiot espousing such a nonsense notion."

"His ridiculous belief that Covid is a causation of gay marriage is not only a dangerous conspiracy theory but could propagate and incite hate of gay people and surely contravenes the Equality Act 2010," Meyer continued. "So-called free speech that promotes such hate and division should not be given a platform."

Tait is up for an election next month, but is unlikely to win. In 2019, he only received 31 votes and came in last among 10 candidates. One of his political goals was to move the British monarchy to Scotland if he was elected.

This is far from the only ridiculous conspiracy theory that has tried to link the pandemic to gay people. Earlier this year, QAnon started trafficking in the theory that vaccines could turn people gay.

"I have many homosexual friends that have said they have known they were different SINCE THEY WERE LITTLE KIDS," a QAnon channel with over 180,000 followers wrote. "When is your earliest memory? 4 years old? You've already received 50 vaccines by then in 2020. Truly if it were genetic then the rate should be decreasing, but it's increasing, indicating something in their environment is pushing it that direction."

Last year, a leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kiev Patriarchate, Patriarch Filaret said that the pandemic was God's punishment for the "sinfulness of humanity; first of all, I mean same-sex marriage." Shortly after that, Filaret tested positive for the virus.