by Sunny Hundal

David Cameron has today evening defended the PPC Phillipa Stroud, but pointedly did not refute the allegations made in the original Observer article.

In an email reply to a constituent, passed on to Liberal Conspiracy, Cameron’s office released this statement:

Philippa makes no apology for being a committed Christian. However, it is categorically untrue that she believes homosexuality to be an illness. Indeed, Philippa was deeply offended that The Observer has suggested otherwise. Since David Cameron became Leader of the Conservative Party in 2005, he has made clear the Party’s commitment to sexual equality and gay rights – from his first conference speech, in which he proudly confirmed our support for Civil Partnerships, to his apology for our former stance on Section 28. We have supported tackling homophobic bullying and measures to tackle incitement to gay hatred, and we have opened up Conservative candidate selection to people from all backgrounds. Philippa Stroud has spent more than 20 years working with disturbed people who society have turned their back on and who are often not helped by state agencies. Drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill and the homeless are just some of the people that Philippa and her friends in the charitable sector have tried to help over the years. The idea that she is prejudiced against gay people is false.

The same statement was made to the BBC Asian Network today.

But Cameron’s statement does not refute the central allegation: that Stroud set up an evangelical Church that prayed for homosexuals to be saved.

All the charity work in the world doesn’t hide that fact, and neither has any statement by Stroud or Cameron’s office refuted that central point.

As Pink News points out:

When PinkNews.co.uk pointed out to her spokesman that he Observer’s prime claim was not that she believed homosexuality to be an illness and instead that she appeared to believe it could be overcome through prayer and removing “demons”, he said: “We will not be adding to or subtracting to [sic] the statement.”

The controversy around Stroud cannot go away so easily. And yet the media pointedly refuses to raise the issue.