On Sunday, the Observer carried this report on a high-flying Conservative candidate, Philippa Stroud, who is standing in the seat of Sutton and Cheam, in Surrey.
It’s entirely possible that you missed the story, as it doesn’t appear to have been picked up by any other mainstream news outlets.
If you did, the main charge levelled against Stroud is that she founded a church and night shelter in Bedford, the King’s Arms Project, which tried to “cure” homosexuals by driving out their demons through prayer.
One girl described her experience to the Observer:
Abi, a teenage girl with transsexual issues, was sent to the church by her parents, who were evangelical Christians. “Convinced I was demonically possessed, my parents made the decision to move to Bedford, because of this woman [Stroud] who had come back from Hong Kong and had the power to set me free.”
The Pink News followed up, obtaining a statement from the candidate:
Today, Mrs Stroud issued a statement saying: “I make no apology for being a committed Christian. However it is categorically untrue that I believe homosexuality to be an illness and I am deeply offended that the Observer has suggested otherwise.”
When PinkNews.co.uk pointed out to her spokesman that the Observer‘s prime claim was not that she believed homosexuality to be an illness, rather that she appeared to believe it could be overcome through prayer and removing “demons”, he said: “We will not be adding to or subtracting to the statement.” [Sic]
It’s difficult to see why this story hasn’t created a huge storm in the mainstream media, particularly because the Conservatives’ questionable position on gay rights has been a talking point of this election.
It seems even stranger, given that the comments of Manish Sood — a Labour candidate much less influential in his party than Stroud is in hers — about Gordon Brown’s premiership have, within hours, made it into almost all the mainstream media outlets.
A campaign to bring the story to wider media attention has had #PhilippaStroud trending on Twitter. Last night, a Guardian blog reported that the story had been linked to on Facebook more than 5,000 times and tweeted more than 7,000 times.
As one tweet sums it up:
Gordon Brown calls ONE voter a bigot. Press goes MENTAL. #PhilippaStroud calls MILLIONS of voters demons. Silence. Why?
If the allegations are true — and at the moment there is no reason to doubt it, as they have not been denied — it is a very serious matter indeed that Stroud could hold public office in just two days’ time.
Will the main broadcasters and newspapers pick up on the story? Where’s the media outrage when you need it?
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