Jamaicans are trying to stop a hate preacher who thinks gays should be stoned to death from coming to their country.

Steven Anderson also celebrated the murder of 49 people at Pulse nightclub in Florida in 2016, saying the victims were ‘pedophiles’. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes his Faithful World Baptist Church in Tempe Arizona, US, as a ‘hardcore’ anti-LGBTI hate group.

Anderson hopes to travel to Jamaica from 29 January to 3 February and already has people organising for him to speak in schools there. Homosexuality is illegal on the Caribbean island and Jamaicans fear his visit will stir up more hate against LGBTIs.

The preacher, aged 36, made a video welcoming the deaths in the Pulse shooting in Orlando, Florida. He said: ‘The good news is there is 50 less pedophiles in this world. Because these homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles. That’s who was a victim here."

In the Pulse video, Anderson says the gay and bi victims would have died anyway from ‘AIDS and syphilis’. And in an earlier video, he preached that gay and bi people are ‘filled with disease because of the judgement of God’.

South Africa banned Steven Anderson in September 2016, citing the country’s constitution and saying he was an ‘undesirable person’. That same month, he travelled to Botswana. But authorities there kicked him out of the country for hate speech after calling for gays to be killed. Malawi has also said he will not be welcome and the UK has banned him. And Anderson claims Canada refused him entry in November 2017. Despite this, he told Washington Blade that he expects to be allowed into Jamaica.