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A leaflet distributed at UKIP conference compares gay people to the Yorkshire Ripper and Hitler.

The pro-Brexit party is holding its annual conference in Torquay today where it is set to announce its sixth leader in 18 months.

The party has made efforts in recent years to challenge accusations of outright homophobia, and two of the candidates leading the pack in the leadership race – Peter Whittle and Anne Marie Waters.

But that didn’t stop members of the party’s more extreme wings from espousing homophobic views.

One leaflet from a fringe UKIP group, picked up by the Mirror, contained shocking anti-LGBT content.

The leaflet, distributed by ultra-conservative UKIP group Support 4 The Family, compared gay people to Hitler and notorious serial killer Peter Sutcliffe.

It said: “The phrase ‘abusers of themselves with mankind’ in the Bible [refers] to the practice of homosexuality.

“You may call it an ‘alternative lifestyle’, but this term is meaningless.

“Everyone from Hitler to the Yorkshire Ripper could claim an alternative lifestyle that, to themselves, no doubt seemed quite natural and instinctive.

“The question is whether homosexuality is a legitimate alternative. God says it is not.”

Everyone’s talking about a reluctant ripoff lion, so just a reminder of a leaflet being given out at UKIP conference https://t.co/Vozp8bCzkN pic.twitter.com/o0bceCRO7K — Dan Bloom (@danbloom1) September 29, 2017

Ahead of the conference, Support 4 The Family issued a survey to leadership candidates asking whether they would agree to abolish same-sex marriage, ban LGBT sex ed in schools, and whether gay people can be ‘cured’.

Leadership candidate David Kurten, who is backed by influential Leave.EU donor Arron Banks, made comments linking homosexuality to childhood sexual abuse in his responses to the group.

He said: “The latest scientific studies show that incidence of homosexuality in adults decreases with age, so it is unlikely to be fixed at birth.

“Study after study also shows that the incidence of homosexuality is much higher among people who have been sexually abused as children. This is an issue which needs to be addressed but is not because of political correctness.”

Meanwhile, former UKIP leader Nigel Farage headed to the US earlier this week to rally support for the most homophobic Senate candidate in modern history.

Mr Farage is not expected to speak at the party conference.

But a retired bishop who has defended gay ‘cure’ therapy is listed as a speaker at the party’s conference this weekend.

Former Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir Ali, a notorious opponent of LGBT rights, will address party members

He has defended gay ‘cure’ therapy, and has said of gay people: “We welcome homosexuals, but we want them to repent and be changed.”

In 2012 the bishop signed a letter to back a therapist who was found guilty of professional malpractice last year after offering ‘gay cure’ therapy.

The bishop said of gay cure therapy: “We believe that people who seek, freely, to resolve unwanted same-sex attractions hold the moral right to receive professional assistance.

“Whether motivated by Christian conscience or other values, clients, not practitioners, have the prerogative to choose the yardstick by which to define themselves.”

He claimed of same-sex parenting: “This is social experimentation. It’s one thing for a child not to have a mother or father through tragedy but it is another to plan children to come into the world without a father.

“The results of ‘father-hunger’ can be seen in [lack of] educational achievement and on our streets, where it contributes to delinquency.”

The bishop also criticised Sir Elton John for raising children with his husband David Furnish.

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage headed to the US earlier this week to rally support for the most homophobic Senate candidate in modern history.