Watch: South African’s video of gay cyclist shutting down hate preacher

A South African man’s video of a gay cyclist responding to a street preacher spewing hate in Glasgow has gone viral.

The preacher was captured on video shouting for gay people to repent by South African-born writer Emlyn Pearce, who is himself gay.

In the clip, a crowd is gathered around the homophobe in the city centre, as he vents his bigoted views on sexual “immorality” while holding a bible.

A man is then seen cycling past. He stops after hearing the comments and reacts to the zealot. “I’m gay, I’m gay, say that to me,” he says angrily, pointing to himself.

Seemingly ignored, the cyclist starts to leave when the preacher yells after him that, “God still loves you”.

In response, the man turns back and replies: “I love me. I don’t need a god to do it.”

The crowd immediately reacts with applause and cheers, before the cyclist rides off.

After posting the clip on Facebook, Pearce wrote: “If anyone knows this chap, please tell him to get in touch because a fair few people would like to buy him a drink.”

He later revealed that the cyclist had been identified as Ryan Vance.

“I walk through Glasgow holding hands with my boyfriend all the time, and we have never experienced any homophobia. So to walk down the main shopping street and hear a man shouting that ‘the 99%’ need to stand up to the ‘1%’ who are gay was very sad and very scary,” Pearce said.

“Then Ryan arrived and did that thing that we all like to think we’d do but few of us ever manage: he stood up to hatred and bigotry without any fear or hesitation. And Ryan is right, we all need to start by loving ourselves, and we don’t need anybody else’s permission to do that.

“Ryan Vance, as a gay man and a human being, I salute you. As I said in my private message to you, you made the world a better place. Thank you, sir – your pint awaits!” concluded Pearce.