Tea Party candidate appears to endorse stoning for gays

A Republican Tea Party candidate in Oklahoma has appeared to endorse the practice of stoning gay people to death.

Last year, Scott Esk replied to a friend’s post on Facebook regarding the Pope’s views on gay marriage with a passage from the Bible that demanded gay people be “put to death”.

In the post, Esk added: “I never said I would author legislation to put homosexuals to death, but I didn’t have a problem with it.”

During an interview with Moore Monthly magazine, Esk was asked to clarify the comments.

“[Stoning gay people to death was] done in the Old Testament under a law that came directly from God,” he said. “In that time there it was totally just. It came directly from God.”

He continued: “I have no plans to re-institute that in Oklahoma law. I do have some very huge moral misgivings about those kinds of sins. I know what was done in the Old Testament and what was done back then was what’s just… And I do stand for Biblical morality.”

Meanwhile, Rick Perry, the Republican Governor of Texas, has recently caused a furore by apparently comparing homosexuality to alcoholism.