US Preacher Who Spouts Anti-LGBT And Anti-Semitic Rhetoric Is Refused Entry Into Ireland

Steven L. Anderson, an American pastor known for his anti-Semitic and anti-LGBT views, was banned Monday from visiting Ireland ahead of his May 26 trip to Dublin to give a sermon.

Anderson runs the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Arizona, which has been defined as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center non-profit advocacy organization.

Irish Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan ordered the exclusion order for Anderson to be denied entry.

"I have signed the exclusion order under executive powers in the interests of public policy," Flanagan said.

Any Irish minister can exercise powers to exclude foreign individuals from entering Ireland in the interests of national security or public policy due to a provision in the 1999 Immigration Act. Anderson is the first foreign individual to be banned under the act.

Numerous online petitions have circulated calling for Anderson to be barred from the country. Advocacy group LGBT Ireland, one of the groups that made a petition to refuse Anderson's entry, praised the Irish government's decision but also called for new anti-hate speech legislation to be drafted.

The Irish Council on Civil Liberties, on the other hand, called the decision "a dangerous precedent" and has asked the Irish government for a concrete justification behind Anderson's exclusion.

This isn't the first time Anderson has had immigration issues in a foreign country. In 2016, he was deported from Botswana after an interview where he said that gay people should be killed. That same year he was deemed an "undesirable person" by South Africa.

Anderson has made comments in support of the 2016 shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub, where 49 people were killed. His website calls homosexuality "a sin" and he also denies the Holocaust, while claiming the Jewish Messiah is the Antichrist.

In 2009, Anderson drew headlines for praying for the death of Barack Obama.