Irish politician says she received hate mail for anti-gay marriage views

Irish Fine Gael politician Lucinda Creighton has complained at heavy criticism of her views on gay marriage.

Ms Creighton, a party spokeswoman for equality issues, wrote on Twitter last week that she did not believe gay couples should be allowed to marry.

She said she “fully supports” civil partnerships but “marriage is primarily about children, [the] main purpose being to propagate [and] create”.

Her comments received strong opposition on Facebook and Twitter.

On her Facebook page, some users called her a “homophobic idiot”, a “c**t” and a “disgusting human being”.

Others urged against abusive language but attacked her views.

One user wrote: “Most of the angry people posting comments refrained from using such language.”

Another wrote: “The bigoted comments are regrettable but lets not forget who started the ball rolling – it was the EQUALITY spokesperson from Fine Gael who said YES to second class citizenship.”

Ms Creighton told the Herald: “It’s pretty vicious. I started getting text messages and calls from anonymous numbers last night.

“I’ve no problem having a discussion but this nastiness has evolved from people who want to whip it up,” she said

She has not removed the comments from her Facebook page and claims that it is an “orchestrated campaign”.

“There’s no point trying to censor it,” she said. “It’s an orchestrated campaign. It’s better to let people see the venom and nastiness that people engage in.”

These comments were quickly picked up by Facebook users, with one writing: “None of this is an orchestrated campaign, you just offended loads of people all at once.”

Fine Gael has distanced itself from her views. A party statement said: “Lucinda Creighton’s comments represent her own personal views. In 2004 Fine Gael was the first political party to call for civil partnership for same sex couples and has been fully supportive of the civil partnership legislation at all times.”