Ladies and Gentleman, Nick Griffin has done it again. He’s made me so angry that I’m having to write out my feelings to avoid throwing things and/or bursting into tears. For those of you that don’t know, Nick Griffin is the leader of the British National Party (BNP) here in the UK, and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). The BNP is an extremely right wing political party, and is generally perceived as being unaccepting of people. The party’s views, and Griffin’s in particular, are homophobic, xenophobic and massively Islamophobic. Needless to say, as a bisexual daughter of an immigrant, they’re not one of my favourite groups of people.

Today Griffin took to Twitter to tweet about the ruling on the case where Christian Bed and Breakfast owners, Susanne and Mike Wilkinson, refused to allow a gay couple, Michael Black and John Morgan, to stay in the same bed of their B&B establishment. They have been found guilty of unfair discrimination and ordered to pay a fine of £3,600.

Yes, that is actually something that a representative of my country said in a public forum. The text that I’ve whited out is actually the address of the gay couple involved in the case, along with a clear threat. There is every danger that people will read that and see it as an incitation for violence. In retaliation people have released Nick Griffin’s own address, but two wrongs do not make a right. That will do nothing but fuel his fire. Those tweets are actually illegal to post, so there is a good chance that he will have heavy legal sanctions put on in, we don’t need to do anything but wait. If nothing happens, then we can gleefully call for him being stripped of his seat.

The bit that got me furiously angry was the use of a single word: heterophobia. When the vast majority of society is straight and very heteronormative, how on earth can anything be heterophobic? Where are the examples of centuries of perseucution? Where are the suicides of school children after years of heterophobic bullying? Where are the couples afraid to walk hand in hand down a street in case they get “Straight!” screamed at them? There simply aren’t any, and until there are I refuse to entertain the idea of heterophobia.

This brings me to his final tweet, about how left and gay activists should be targeting Muslims instead of Christians. Nowhere in this entire case has Islam or any of its followers been involved. He has literally just randomly thrown that in there from his own hateful mind. He seems to have it set in his mind that Christians are the good guys, whilst he’s previously said in speeches that Islam is “a wicked, vicious faith”  that tries to conquer countries. He thinks that a Christian couple getting a fine is straight up discrimination, but still can’t recongise that these disgusting claims are the true form of discrimination.

Standing up for your rights isn’t bullying, and these people weren’t activists. They were just a couple looking for a place to stay for a night. They didn’t deserve to be turned away, and they certainly didn’t deserve to have their home address broadcast on the Internet. Neither do Muslims deserve the hatred that they are forced to endure from this man and many others like him in this country. I’m ashamed to have him represent me in the EU Parliament, and I very much hope these tweets means that he won’t be there for much longer.

If you also want to take a stand against Nick Griffin, Change.org currently has a petition to ban him from twitter.

What do you think of Nick Griffin and his comments? Share with us in the comments section below.

Written by Abigail ‘Chazza’ Chalrinho