LONDON - If the chaplain of the London Stock Exchange has his way, gay Brits will be branded outcasts - literally.
Rev. Peter Mullen, an Anglican vicar who serves as rector of St. Michael's church in Cornhill and St. Sepulchre in London's financial district, wants all gay men tattooed on their buttocks and chins. According to the vicar, the butt stamp should read "Sodomy can seriously damage your health," and the chin patch should proclaim "Fellatio kills."
"It is time that religious believers began to recommend ... discouragements of homosexual practices after the style of warnings on cigarette packets," Mullen, 66, wrote on his blog.
The suggestion evoked comparisons to some freakish combination of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Adolph Hitler's management of European Jews.
Understandably, gay rights activists were outraged by Mullen's outburst and demanded his resignation. It's not the first time the vicar has spewed anti-gay sentiment, gay rights group Stonewall noted: He also publicly has condemned pride events as "obscene" and posted to his blog a poem slamming the wedding of two gay priests performed in a church by a fellow vicar.
Even the Bishop of London was not amused by Mullen's most recent stunt, calling the suggestion "highly offensive."
Lest Mullen be mistaken for a common homophobe, however, The Register pointed out the reverend is equally opposed to secularism ("far worse than the threat from international terrorism," Mullen wrote in an editorial in the Times) and abortion.
Mullen's most recent diatribe may come at a higher cost than previous outbursts have carried.
"These comments are now being looked at internally within the Diocese, and he faces disciplinary procedures," a spokesman for the Diocese of London told The Register.
Mullen stands unrepentant. He called the collection of rants a joke.
"I wrote some satirical things on my blog, and anybody with an ounce of sense of humour or any understanding of the tradition of English satire would immediately assume that they're light-hearted jokes," the vicar told The Register. "I certainly have nothing against homosexuals. Many of my dear friends have been and are of that persuasion. What I have got against them is the militant preaching of homosexuality."
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