Oh dear, it was all going well for UKIP, what with the furore over the Rotherham fostering issue, but then their election candidate in Croydon North just has to go an open his big mouth and put both feet in to the kneecaps:

UKIP’S candidate for the Croydon North by-election says gay people should not be allowed to adopt.

Winston McKenzie said placing children with gay or lesbian couples was “unhealthy” after retweeting an article written by a National Front supporter who claimed there was “no such thing as homophobia”.

No such thing as homophobia, eh? Let’s see for ourselves…

Mr McKenzie, who believes the publicity surrounding the case will benefit him when Croydon North goes to polls on Thursday, saw no irony in his views on gay adoption or marriage.

He asked the Advertiser’s reporter: “If you couldn’t look after your child and you had to put them up for adoption would you honestly want your child to be adopted by a gay couple?

A loving stable family home is a loving stable family home as far I’m concerned, but clearly that’s McKenzie’s view?

“Would you seriously want that or a heterosexual family? Which would be more healthy for the child?

Anyone but you, for starters.

“A caring loving home is a heterosexual or single family. I don’t believe (a gay couple) is healthy for a child.”

Clearly a bigot, then.

When asked why, Mr McKenzie, UKIP’s spokesman for culture, media and sport, said that couples might raise the child to be gay.

“There are people out there who bring up their kids encouraging them to believe they are gay themselves,” he said.

And a completely ignorant bigot at that.

“If the child is properly heterosexual and they are put in foster homes without any thought or consideration of who they are or what their identity is, that’s not right.

There is, of course, no evidence whatsoever that gay couples raise their children to be gay.  Children brought up in same-sex households do tend to be a little bit ahead of the game in terms of social skills than children but more likely to be gay? No, definitely not.

“A child might be vehemently against being housed with a gay couple but you wouldn’t know until they were older. Placing them with that couple deceives the child.

Oh but I think we do know – a child brought up in same sex household is highly unlikely to grow up to become a raging homophobic bigot, like Mr McKenzie.

“If there’s no alternative then maybe. If it’s a case of being adopted by a gay couple or deportation then what can do you? But if you ask me, I’m not for heterosexual children being adopted by gay couples.”

Well that’s big of him – gay adoption is just about okay as an alternative to, say, deportation. How delightful.

When asked how he would know if a child was gay or heterosexual, Mr McKenzie replied: “I don’t want to get into that. It’s a touchy subject.”

That’s not a point I’m prepared to pursue for the sake of not making any defamatory jokes.

Does homophobia exist? Of course it does, and Mr McKenzie stands as living breathing, utterly pig-shit ignorant proof.