It was the ultimate “gotcha.” In the run-up to last year’s UK election, Tim Farron, leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrat party, was asked by the BBC whether gay sex was a sin. He had been trying to avoid answering questions about homosexuality for some days when he told a reporter that gay sex was not a sin.
Farron resigned just after the election, saying: “To be a political leader – especially of a progressive, liberal party in 2017 – and to live as a committed Christian, to hold faithfully to the Bible’s teaching, has felt impossible for me.”
Now, he has told London’s Premier Christian radio that his election statement about gay sex was something he regrets. “All they wanted to do was talk about my Christian beliefs and what it meant. I foolishly and wrongly attempted to push it away by giving an answer that was not right.”
He added “in the end, the difficulty is, if you are a Christian you have a very clear idea about what sin is and it is us falling short of the glory of God and that is something we equally, all of us, share.”
“In one sense to be asked that question is to essentially persecute one group of human beings.”
Farron also told the radio programme that he was “a Bible-believing Christian, call me an evangelical if you want, who is a liberal and of the left … and the main thing is the gospel gets heard.”
Christians must be careful not to sound like victims, though. Asked if there was a glass ceiling in politics for Christians, he said: “I don’t know. There was for me.”
Farron remains a Liberal democrat MP and the party has a new leader Sir Vince Cable. In response to the Premier interview, he tweeted:
I strongly disagree with @timfarron’s personal views expressed today. @libdems have a long & proud record of fighting for #LGBT+ rights: campaigning to repeal section 28, equalising age of consent and legislating for equal marriage. I will continue to champion rights and dignity.
— Vince Cable (@vincecable) January 10, 2018