SCOTLAND’S first openly gay footballer has hit back after being sent hateful material published by a Loyalist group who described homosexuality as a “sin”.
On his Twitter account, Zander Murray posted pictures of the package sent to him containing material published by the Northern Ireland-based group The Lord’s Work Trust – including a 16-page booklet called “Homosexuality in light of the bible”.
The pamphlet claims Aids proved homosexuality was “worse than smoking” because of the health impact of the Aids epidemic and accuses gay men of being more likely than straight men to be paedophiles.
Don’t mind trolls on social media, but to go out your way and send hate mail to my club 🤔. Such horrible words and so out of touch with reality. Just told my lil Zar, I think she replied “Da, I’ll bite their derrières!”. 😆❤️🌈 #loveislove #geespeace pic.twitter.com/W1wmlNCcZo
— Zander Murray (@ZanderMurray) October 22, 2022
Murray, who came out as gay earlier this year, said: “Don’t mind trolls on social media, but to go out your way and send hate mail to my club. Such horrible words and so out of touch with reality.”
He joked he had shown the material to his dog adding: “Just told my lil Zar, I think she replied “Da, I’ll bite their derrières!”
The Lord’s Work Trust promotes churches in Northern Ireland it said had “made a public stand against the Covid-19 deception and its resultant agenda”.
The picture showed three pamphlets which were delivered from Northern Ireland to Murray’s team the Gala Fairydean Rovers.
The package included the tract on homosexuality as well as one called “Atheism annihilated with logic, reason and divine revelation” and another called “An inconvenient truth”, which is an apology “on behalf of the established church in its general failure to warn the lost about the place the Bible calls Hell”.
The Lord’s Work Trust claims to be a registered charity in Northern Ireland – though no trace of it can be found on the region’s charity commission site.
A spokesperson for the organisation told The National they were not aware of materials being sent to Murray "directly". They added: "We do distribute our literature to others who may then have forwarded it to him."
The group – who say they are “strongly opposed to Romanism”, a derogatory name for Catholicism – have also recently published material on why they support Orange Order celebrations of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, a decisive battle in England's war to rule over Ireland.
It also published material encouraging Christians to break lockdown rules because it said they were contrary to the word of the Bible by closing places of worship.
