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Tory MP has said homosexual relationships are not equal to the 'preferred model' of marriage
Anne Widdecombe votes consistenly against gay rights
Anne Widdecombe: Gay laws threaten free speech
Anne Widdecombe, Tory MP for Maidstone and the Weald, has said new equality laws are threatening free speech in the UK for the first time in modern history.
Debating Christianity in Public Life at St Andrew's Bournemouth United Reformed Church, Widdecombe, 62, said that Christians now face criminal prosecution for not complying with some legislation, the Bournemouth Daily Echo reports.
"For the first time in this country we are being obliged as citizens to do things which are against our conscience," she said.
"The other thing is that you can now have the police on your doorstep, but not for something that you have done, but for the views that you have expressed."
She cited the case of a Christian couple questioned by police for asking to leave Christian literature in a council register office used for civil partnership ceremonies, and said that a Christian printer who refused to print leaflets for a gay pride march would be committing a criminal offence.
She added: "We have now blurred the line completely between stirring up hatred and stirring up violence and merely expressing an opinion."
Widdecombe, who converted to Roman Catholicism in 1993 in protest at the Church of England's ordination of women priests, is known for consistently voting against gay rights legislation, and described the first Conservative LGBT summit as "misguided".
In 2000, she said homosexual relationships were not equal to the "preferred model" of marriage and that gay lifestyles did not have "equal validity" with heterosexual relationships.
