A extremist US pastor who celebrated the Pulse nightclub shooting has been banned from Ireland because of his anti-gay preaching

• Notorious anti-LGBT preacher Steven Anderson of Arizona has become the first person to be banned from the Republic of Ireland under a 1999 exclusion rule. 
• Anderson has called for gay people to be killed, and in 2016 praised the terrorists who killed 49 people in the Pulse gay nightclub in Florida. 
• He has already been banned from several EU countries, as well as Jamaica and Botswana, for his views.
• "I have signed the exclusion order under my executive powers in the interests of public policy," said Irish Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan on Sunday.
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An Arizona pastor notorious for virulently anti-LGBT sermons has been banned from the Republic of Ireland, the 32nd country to refuse him entry because of his extreme views. 

Pastor Steven L. Anderson founded the Faithful Word Baptist Church in 2005, and has used his position to expound anti-Semitic and anti-LGBT views.

In sermons, Anderson has called for gay people to be executed, and celebrated the 2016 terror attack on the Pulse nightclub in Florida in 2016, in which many LGBT people were killed.

He has also made an anti-semitic film promoting Holocaust denial, according to the Anti-Defamation League. 

On his website, Anderson said that he was scheduled to preach in Dublin on May 26.

A petition calling for Anderson to be banned from Ireland had gained 14,0000 signatures, and on Sunday Ireland's Minister for Justice, Charlie Flanagan, exclude Andersen from the country with the first-ever use of a law passed in 1999.

"I have signed the exclusion order under my executive powers in the interests of public policy," said Mr Flanagan, as quoted by the Irish Times.

Anderson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week the Netherlands acted to prevent Anderson entering the country to preach. The decision also effectively bans him from the other 25 EU stats which share the Schengen common border policy.

In January 2018 Jamaica denied Anderson entry, after he was banned from South Africa and Canada. He had been expelled from Botswana in 2016.

"Don't expect anything contemporary or liberal," declares Anderson on his church's website. "We are an old-fashioned, independent, fundamental, King James Bible only, soul-winning Baptist church."

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