Chastity speaker and author Jason Evert was due to deliver lectures in Irish colleges this week but those appearances have been cancelled due to a huge backlash against his comments on homosexuality and contraception.

Evert, who promotes chastity primarily to high school and college students, will visit Ireland as part of his It Starts With The Heart tour. His teachings have caused concerns with published materials stating homosexuality is “disordered, much like contraceptive sex between heterosexuals. Both acts are directed against God’s natural purpose for sex — babies and bonding.”

The text further states, “A guy who has these attractions may not want them, or even know where they’re coming from. Perhaps they stem from an unhealthy relationship with his father, an inability to relate to other guys, or even sexual abuse.”

Evert has also disseminated, “Even if a person does not believe in God, he cannot argue with nature. For example, the life expectancy of homosexual men is half that of heterosexual men. Furthermore, imagine what would happen if all people with same-sex attractions were placed in their own country. It would be empty in a century, because bodies of the same gender are not made to receive each other.”

The chastity speaker has had lectures in Blackrock College, Rosemont secondary school, University College Dublin, and Tower Hotel in Waterford City cancelled.

One of the groups who urged the cancellation, the UCD LGBT Society, stated his lectures were “putting the safety of UCD’s LGBTQ+ community at risk” as they could have “lasting and damaging effects on the mental wellbeing” of students.

In an interview with The Journal, Ian Power, the CEO of SpunOut – the youth information website – stated, “For anybody, but particularly for somebody who is struggling with their identity, to be told that they are in some way disordered or wrong is extremely harmful to hear. This could have really serious consequences for the mental health of young people coming to terms with their sexuality – as you struggle with that, you’re so much more vulnerable to the things other people say, particularly for younger people.”

Evert’s lectures for young people in churches in Dublin and Waterford will go ahead.