A prominent UK columnist who has spoken out against the homosexual lobby’s attempts to silence all opposition has been subjected to a “vicious outpouring of hate”, including calls for her to be killed.

Last week Daily Mail writer Melanie Phillips warned that “some gay people were in danger of turning into the new McCarthyites by demonising and attempting to silence all who disagreed with the gay rights agenda.”

She was shocked by the nature and scale of the abusive response she received.

Describing her treatment Ms Philips said that she had been subjected to “an extraordinarily vicious outpouring of hate and incitement to violence, via email, the internet and in the mainstream media, and much worse besides”.

She said: “In my article, I expressed concern that attempting to bar a Christian GP from the government’s advisory council on drugs because of his views on homosexuality, bombarding the school curriculum with irrelevant gay references, and prosecuting Christian hoteliers for refusing to accommodate gay men in the same bedroom were examples of a frightening intolerance.

“The response to this warning against an attempt by the gay lobby to silence dissent? An eruption of tweets on Twitter suggesting that I should be killed. Yes, really.”

She added: “If the gay lobby had set about trying to prove my point, it could hardly have done a better job.

“Indeed, the total inability of those who subjected me to such abuse to realise that they are, in fact, spewing out the very hatred, intolerance and incitement to violence of which they are accusing others would be hilarious were it not so terrifying.”

And while she said she harbors no ill feelings towards homosexuals, she does have grave reservations about the homosexual political agenda.

She added: “To oppose the gay rights agenda no more means that one is anti-gay than to oppose multiculturalism or extreme feminism means one is anti-black or anti-woman.

“What really alarms me, and the reason why I bang on about the dangers of these different rights agendas, is that they are eroding the bedrock values that underpin our free, tolerant and liberal society.

“By overturning moral norms and hijacking language in this way, they are hollowing out our culture.

“More frightening still, as has been so graphically demonstrated by the reaction to my article, they are also rendering people increasingly incapable of rational thought.”

Last month Christian guesthouse owners Peter and Hazelmary Bull were ordered to pay £3,600 in damages to a homosexual couple who were refused double bed accommodation.

Since the judge announced his decision Mrs Bull has been subjected to abusive phone calls, but she is unable to ignore the phone because her 71-year-old husband has been in hospital recovering from heart surgery.

Homosexual couples have also been besieging the B&B with demands for double rooms in what appears to be an attempt to force the Christian couple out of business.

And last week it emerged that bogus reviews of the couple’s hotel were being placed on Tripadvisor.co.uk, a prominent travel website, in what appeared to be an attempt to harm their business.

The genuineness of the reviews was questioned when Mrs Bull discovered that the people behind them were claiming to have stayed at the hotel in the winter – when the hotel was closed.

Mr and Mrs Bull are set to appeal the ruling against them.