This is the full version of a live streamed debate that took place in Omagh Arts Centre on the 27 April 2015. Skip to 50:00 to watch Susan-Anne White.
An Independent candidate standing for election in Northern Ireland has enhanced her “biblically correct” reputation by claiming to have “proof” that gay people are 40 times more likely to abuse children.
Devout Christian Susan-Anne White is one of nine candidates standing in West Tyrone on 7 May.
On Tuesday she appeared at an election debate in Omagh where she made the claims as part of her defence of Democratic Unionist Jim Wells who last week made comments linking gay marriage and child abuse.
Susan-Anne White's message caused one candidate to place his head in his hands
Wells has since apologised and resigned as Health Minister.
White, whose manifesto includes pledges to close abortion clinics and make adultery a punishable offence, told the audience on Tuesday: “In the main, what Jim Wells said was correct and I can prove it.
“Are you interested in the truth? Is anybody interested in the truth?”
Ignoring boos and jeers, White continued, stating: “Studies have shown that homosexuals are 40 times more likely than the general populace to abuse children.”
Jim Wells has apologised for his controversial comments
(At this point the candidate to White’s right places his head in his hands in apparent disbelief.)
White continues, citing a handful of cases where gay people were convicted of child abuse in the United States and Britain. She is cut short by the chair who cites fears of libeling those she has named. White continues, urging the audience to Google them.
At one point, the chair of the debate asks White to cheers and applause: “Did you Google heterosexual abuse?”
White responds: “The question we are discussing at the moment is not about heterosexual abuse.
"Heterosexuals can abuse children. Because the heart of man is depraved. Of course heterosexuals can and have abused children, but the subject we are discussing here are the comments made by Jim Wells. Keep on topic!”
White had earlier took a shot at the Conservative candidate standing for the same seat.
Attacking the party’s support for gay marriage, she said: "Gay marriage is a contradiction in terms. It is not normal or natural. The Bible speaks of men acting against nature and burning in their lust one for another."
"It’s a shame that Claire-Louise (Leyland’s) party legalised sodomite marriage.
“That is something she should hang her head in shame about. She should not be proud about that.”
In an interview earlier this month, White told the Belfast Telegraph: “I don’t consider myself extreme – not at all.
“It is society that has moved. Not so far in the past, most people would have shared my views.
“My views only seem extreme because society has moved away from God’s principles.”
Here's a re-cap of White's manifesto:
'Biblically correct NOT politically correct'
I pledge to:
•Close Marie Stopes Abortion clinic
•Oppose the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland
•Remove state-sponsored amoral sex education from schools
•Restore corporal punishment to schools
•Uphold parental rights to discipline children, including the right to smack
•Raise the age of consent to 18
•Make it an offense for doctors to give contraceptives to underage children
•Oppose the LGBT agenda, while showing compassion to those who struggle with gender confusion
•Oppose the redefinition of marriage
•Ban gay pride parades and recriminative homosexuality
•Stop the state funding of LGBT organisations
•Make adultery a punishable offense
•Abolish the Equality Commission NI and the Human Rights Commissions NI and give all the money they receive to the NHS.
•Oppose feminism and restore dignity to the stay at home mother
•Restore the concept of a family wage with the father as the breadwinner
•Oppose the legalisation of dangerous drugs
•Protest the NHS and increase funding by abolishing unnecessary and money wasting bureaucrats and quangos
•Withdraw from money wasting and decadent Europe
•Oppose the global warming fanatics and their pseudo-science
•Imprison those found guilty of animal cruelty including those involved in dog fights
•Install CCTV in all abattoirs
•Ban halal slaughter
•Oppose the Islamisation of British culture- no more mosques and no more extensions
•Restore capital punishment for murder, including terrorist murder