The head of British organisation Christian Concern has reportedly suggested that diver Tom Daley is gay because of his father’s death.
Andrea Minichiello Williams reportedly made the comments while delivering a speech in Jamaica.
Ms Williams is said to have encouraged Jamaica to maintain the laws that make gay sex illegal.
According to a report from Buzzfeed Williams argued that homosexuality was not something that people are born with, suggesting that the lack of a father and “sometimes a level of abuse” led to homosexuality.
Williams reportedly expanded her thinking by suggesting that 19 year old British Olympic Diving champion Tom Daley’s recent announcement that he is in a same sex relationship may be linked to his father’s death. Daley’s father passed away from cancer in 2011.
Williams highlighted that Daley was reportedly now in a relationship with Oscar winning Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who is 20 years his senior. Williams is reported to have continued on making a link between the allowance of same sex relationships and pedophilia.
“Once you strip away all this stuff, what you get is no age consent … nobody ever enforces that law anymore,” she said. “We already have a strong man-boy movement that’s moving in Europe.”
“They hate the line of homosexuality being linked to pedophilia. They try to cut that off, so you can’t speak about it,” she said. “So I say to you in Jamaica: Speak about it. Speak about it.”
Williams is an elected member of the synod of the Church of England but the church has distanced itself from her comments.
Martin Warner, the Bishop of Chichester, where Mrs Williams was elected to the General Synod in 2011, has condemned her comments.
Speaking the British newspaper The Independent the Bishop said that Williams comments had “no sanction in the Church of England” and that they “should be rejected as offensive and unacceptable”.
OIP Staff
