Ireland bans homophobic and antisemitic pastor in first use of exclusion powers

Steven L Anderson is already barred from most of Europe as well as South Africa, Canada and Jamaica

Steven L Anderson has been at the centre of controversies since 2009 when he told his congregation that he prayed nightly for the death of then-president Barack Obama (AFP/Getty)

An American preacher with extreme anti-gay and anti-semitic views has been banned from Ireland in the first use of exclusion powers that were introduced in the country in 1999.

Steven L Anderson, a pastor who founded an independent fundamentalist Baptist church in Arizona, has been at the centre of controversies since 2009 when he told his congregation that he prayed nightly for the death of then-president Barack Obama. In 2014, he proposed the killing of gay people to “eradicate Aids”, and in 2016 he praised the killer of 49 people in an attack on a gay club in Florida.

Mr Anderson had announced his plans to preach in Dublin on 26 May on the website of his Faithful World Baptist Church. But Ireland’s Minister of Justice Charles Flanagan signed the unprecedented exclusion order on Sunday, the Irish Times reported.

“I have signed the exclusion order under my executive powers in the interests of public policy,” Mr Flanagan told the newspaper.

Section 4 of Ireland’s Immigration Act 1999 allows the minister to sign an exclusion order if he “considers it necessary in the interest of national security or public policy”.

The ban has immediate effect.

An online petition signed by more than 14,000 people had called for the ban, calling Mr Anderson “a Holocaust-denier, Islamophobe and anti-LGBT+ extremist”.

All Out, an LGBT+ rights group that also called for Anderson to be banned, cried victory. “The Irish government did the right thing,” the group said on Twitter.

The Faithful World Baptist Church is listed as an anti-gay “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC), an American non-profit legal advocacy organisation. The website of Faithful Word Baptist Church describes homosexuality as “a sin and an abomination which God punishes with the death penalty”. In the past, Mr Anderson has posted videos denying the Holocaust, and suggesting that women belong at home.

The church was founded in 2005 and is based in Tempe, Arizona.

Ireland’s move comes after the Netherlands banned Mr Anderson, who was planning to preach in the country on 23 May. The ban also applies to the rest of the Schengen area.

Mr Anderson, 38, was denied entry to the UK in 2016.

“The home secretary has the power to exclude an individual if she considers that his or her presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good or if their exclusion is justified on public policy grounds,” a spokesperson for the Home Office said at the time, confirming the ban.

“Coming here is a privilege that we refuse to extend to those who seek to subvert our shared values.”

Mr Anderson is also barred from travelling to other countries, including South Africa, Canada, Jamaica, Botswana and Malawi.