Guido can reveal that London Mayor Sadiq Khan spoke on Sunday at a Christmas event hosted by a highly controversial church which discriminates against gay people and is embroiled in a paedophilia cover-up. The deeply evangelical Hillsong Church, founded in Australia, has a policy of actively excluding gay people from roles within the church, with founder Brian Houston explaining:

“Hillsong Church welcomes ALL people but does not affirm all lifestyles. Put clearly, we do not affirm a gay lifestyle and because of this we do not knowingly have actively gay people in positions of leadership, either paid or unpaid.”

It gets worse. Brian Houston is also facing an investigation in Australia over his alleged role in covering-up child sexual abuse by his father, Frank Houston, also an evangelical preacher who was accused of molesting nine children. A Royal Commission found that Brian Houston had failed to inform the police and had a clear conflict by assuming responsibility for the Church’s internal investigation himself. Houston sacked his father from Hillsong over the abuse in 1999 but did not report it to the authorities and even wrote to churches telling them not to make the allegations public.

Khan told a reporter at the event that politicians should learn “lessons in kindness” from the Church. That kindness clearly doesn’t extend to gay people or victims of child sexual abuse in this case…