Stick health warnings on gays, says Stock Exchange chaplain

Tattoos to combat the evils of sodomy

The chaplain to the London Stock Exchange may be forced to walk the plank after demanding that gay chaps be tattooed with cig-packet-style health warnings highlighting the evils of boy-on-boy.

The Rev Peter Mullen, 66, declared on his blog: "It is time that religious believers began to recommend ... discouragements of homosexual practices after the style of warnings on cigarette packets. Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS."

The Bishop of London, Rt Rev Richard Chartres, didn't take kindly to the suggestion, and branded Mullen's outburst "highly offensive", the Evening Standard reports. Gay rights outfit Stonewall has demanded his resignation.

Mullen's cheeks are evidently not for turning, as other highlights of his blog show. He has previously slammed gay pride marches as "obscene", and posted a poem "condemning the blessing of two gay priests at a 'wedding' which the Rev Martin Dudley performed at his church St Bartholomew the Great in the City".

The entertaining ditty begins: "The Bishop of London is in a high huff, Because Dr Dudley has married a puff; And not just one puff - he's married another: Two priests, two puffs and either to other."

Mullen is also rector of St Sepulchre without Newgate and St Michael's Cornhill - the latter describing itself as "traditional Church of England - real Anglicans".

The campaigning rev's "real" Anglicism is further evidenced by this article in the Times, in which he lays into secularism ("far worse than the threat from international terrorism"); abortion ("200,000 embryos every year are ripped, untimely, from the womb..."); and, naturally, homosexuality ("what was once a mortal sin is now only a lifestyle choice").

Mullen may have overstepped the mark, though, with his audacious tattoo plan. A spokesman for The Bish of London said: "While clergy are entitled to their own personal views, we recognise that the content of this text is highly offensive and is in no way reflective of the views of the Diocese of London."

A Diocese source added: "These comments are now being looked at internally within the Diocese and he faces disciplinary procedures."

The embattled clergyman was confronted yesterday at St Michael's Cornhill. He offered: "I wrote some satirical things on my blog and anybody with an ounce of sense of humour or any understanding of the tradition of English satire would immediately assume that they're light-hearted jokes.

"I certainly have nothing against homosexuals. Many of my dear friends have been and are of that persuasion. What I have got against them is the militant preaching of homosexuality."

Loyal parishioner Nicola Beckley, who's been in Mullen's flock for 10 years, defended: "He's a great leader and doesn't cloud his views in political correctness." ®