LOS ANGELES, CA - AUGUST 27: Commentator Ann Coultler speaks onstage at The Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe at Sony Studios on August 27, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. The Comedy Central Roast of Rob Lowe will premiere on September 5, 2016 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images)

Ann Coulter is wondering about whether Hurricane Harvey was “God’s punishment” for Houston electing a lesbian mayor.

The notorious far-right pundit made the shocking assertion as Texas continues to be crippled in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, which has seen thousands displaced from their homes and at least 14 deaths.

In the wake of the hurricane record rainfall has caused catastrophic floods across Texas and Louisiana.

It has been most severe in Houston, the fourth-biggest city in the US.

On Twitter, Coulter insisted it was “more credible” to believe that homosexuality was the cause of the hurricane than climate change.

She wrote: “I don’t believe Hurricane Harvey is God’s punishment for Houston electing a lesbian mayor. But that is more credible than ‘climate change’.”

The apparently unprompted assertion is a reference to former Mayor of Houston Annise Parker, who served as Mayor until 2016.

Parker has three children with her wife Kathy Hubbard, and faced a string of homophobic smears during her time in office.

Of course if the flooding hit more liberal states that supported LGBT rights, evangelical pundits would have been quick to blame their inclusiveness for incurring God’s wrath.

Given Texas is hardly the most pro-LGBT of states and Parker isn’t even in office, we can’t help but feel that it’s reaching a little bit to blame the gays this time.

Coulter’s comments received plenty of sass online.

Author John O’Farrell wrote: “You look back in history & think how can they’ve been so stupid to believe in witches & a flat earth etc. And then you read tweets like this”.

Another Twitter user added: “Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to be this brazenly, brutally, irredeemably stupid. Is it fun? Does it make everything easy?”

Depressingly, Coulter is far from the only person to make the link.

The Westboro Baptist Church said: “Proud sin had the impact! God promised that he would repay U to your face 4 your hatred of His commandments!”

Radio host Bryan Fischer previously blamed the “sodomite Mayor” of Houston for a disaster.

He said: “If you’re going to attribute the flooding in Texas to some kind of supernatural cause, you can make a geographical connection between the flooding and the practice of the occult and witchcraft and the embrace of homosexuality.

“That’s where the disaster is being felt the worse.

“Sodom and Gamorrah – it was a natural disaster, but it was very localised. It wiped out those two towns, it didn’t wipe out the entire region, it just wiped out those two cities where homosexuality had been embraced.”

Ann Coulter has previously suggested gay sex should be discouraged as a public health issue, similarly to smoking.

Coulter claimed in 2013: “I think you’re going to have to do something about the gay bathhouses, because AIDS is very expensive, and if I’m paying for it, how about discouraging that behaviour?”

“It’s mostly, in this country, it is a homosexual behaviour. If your argument is Smoking: we all have to pay, then why not, Sodomy: we all have to pay?”

She has also claimed people would rather risk getting Ebola that be called a homophobe.

She said: “This week’s hate just happens to be on the Christians.

“It’s Christianity that the left hates most of all, because that is the foundation of our country and all of our freedoms come from that – freedom of association, freedom of speech. This is a direct attack on the Christians and I wouldn’t [put] so much stress on what’s happening in other countries.

“The rest of the world is a cesspool of violence and atrocities. This is the most consequential nation on Earth and the fact that these Christians would rather get praise from the New York Times by … changing bedpans of Ebola patients in Nigeria, rather than stand up fight against abortion, fight against these bullies.

“I don’t think it’s gay bullies, I think it’s, secular progressives or liberals. The media, they’re the ones who are trying to tear down this country by going directly at the heart of America which is Christianity.”

Related: Radio host claims homosexuals are scaring away US fighter pilots