Former Christian Peoples Alliance leader Alan Craig – who has warned that same-sex marriage amounts to “child abuse” – says he’s campaigning for UKIP by-election candidate Douglas Carswell.

Mr Craig is notorious for his extreme anti-gay views. In a recent blog post, the right-wing Christian branded same-sex marriage a “democratic disgrace” and described it as “social vandalism by the Tory Bullingdon boys”.

The ex-councillor and former 2008 London mayoral candidate also revealed he had applied to join UKIP and was supporting former Tory Douglas Carswell’s bid to become UKIP’s first elected MP.

Mr Carswell, who voted against same-sex marriage last year, describing the law as “arrogant”, defected to UKIP last month, triggering a by-election in Clacton.

In his blog, Alan Craig wrote: “Whatever you think of the issue itself, the gay marriage legislation last year was a democratic disgrace. Faithful one man/one woman marriage has been a defining and enduring bedrock of our society and culture – and the preeminent place of nurture for the nation’s children – for a millennium and a half.”

“Yet without warning, electoral mandate, Green or White Paper consultation or intelligent debate, and egged on by media, the PR industry, Hollywood celebs and the all-powerful gay lobby on both sides of the Atlantic (the UK perennially follows where the US leads), our political leaders like lemmings rushed off the marriage cliff and into the gay sea while emoting loudly and stupidly that it is ‘all about love’.

“Overnight, unitedly and unnecessarily they redefined, enfeebled and wrecked a hugely beneficial social institution.”

Mr Craig added: “As a consequence procreation and child-rearing are no longer primary purposes of marriage and conjugal faithfulness is no longer a primary characteristic. Marriage is no longer marriage.”

In a post published earlier this year, titled ‘Gay marriage and child abuse’, the former Christian Peoples Alliance leader mocked the wedding announcement of gay parents Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow.

“The problem is that all gay marriages are a counterfeit,” Mr Craig wrote. “According to the government and unlike conventional marriages, gay marriages cannot be consummated and adultery cannot be reason for divorce. So same-sex partners in a gay marriage are free to play the field whereas husbands and wives in a real marriage promise to be faithful ’til death us do part’.

“By firmly bolting a counterfeit on to the hallowed institution of marriage, parliament has diluted, distorted and, in the end, dismantled an invaluable social institution. And it is the nation’s children, who need stability, commitment and faithfulness at home to best flourish, who will suffer.”

Mr Craig, an ex-councillor for the London Borough of Newham, was nominated for Stonewall’s ‘Bigot of the Year’ award in 2012.

The year before he caused outrage by comparing gay equality advocates to the invading forces of Nazi Germany, dubbing them the “Gaystapo”.