Oscar Bougardt Calls for ‘LGBQI+ Free’ Cape Town in Fresh Attack on WorldPride

Notorious Cape Town gay hate-speech pastor Oscar Bougardt is once again targeting the LGBTIQ+ community after promising an “LGBQI + free Cape Town” if he were elected as the city’s mayor.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Bougardt, who heads up Calvary Hope Baptist Ministry in Delft, called on Capetonians to “Vote Straight Party” and “Vote for Oscar P. Bougardt for Mayor of Cape Town” in the upcoming 4 November local elections.

He said that, if elected, he would work to reduce rates for water, electricity and other unnecessary taxes.

Bougardt further said that he would “also immediately withdraw all funding for World Pride Day 2028 and redirect those funds toward priorities that matter to our communities: healthcare, law enforcement, and housing for the homeless.”

He then proclaimed that the “Straight Party” is “where everything is done straight forward” and “For a LGBQI + free Cape Town vote for OP Bougardt as mayor.”

Cape Town’s WorldPride hosting sparks fresh attack

Cape Town Pride officially received the hosting duties for WorldPride 2028 at this past weekend’s WorldPride Amsterdam celebrations, making it the first city in Africa to receive the honour.

Bougardt has previously slammed the City of Cape Town for supporting the international event, describing it as “an abomination to all of us who are God-fearing people.”

While the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) opened candidate nominations on 7 August, with nominations closing on 28 August 2026, Bougardt does not appear to be seriously intending to register himself or a political party.

In a response to a journalist’s questions shared on his Facebook page, Bougardt suggested that the post was intended as a hypothetical exercise and that “it does not” confirm an actual candidacy.

Instead, he said, it was intended to “express political views, including what I believe should be done if I occupied public office.”

Leading activist condemns ‘backwards thinking’

Sibonelo Ncanana-Trower, Civil Society Co-chair of the National Task Team (NTT) on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Expression and Sex Characteristics, criticised “the backwards thinking behind” Bougardt’s views.

“It is easy to campaign against WorldPride and present it as an unnecessary expense. It is much harder to confront the uncomfortable reality that LGBTIQ+ people continue to experience discrimination, violence and fear in their own communities. Pride is not the problem. Hate and violence are.”

Ncanana-Trower added that, “Cape Town does not need politics that takes us backwards. It needs leadership that moves everyone forward, including LGBTIQ+ people.”

Bougardt’s long history of anti-LGBTIQ+ statements

Despite previously facing the possibility of jail time linked to his past comments about LGBTIQ+ people, Bougardt regularly uses Facebook to lash out at queer people, ensuring that he remains in the news.

Most recently, he made headlines after condemning a fellow pastor for sharing the stage with gay comedian Marc Lottering.

Bougardt has a long history of claiming that LGBTIQ+ people are a danger to children, families and society, framing them as ungodly and immoral. He has claimed that queer people “prey” on children and has even called for their execution and imprisonment in South Africa.

Unfortunately, his inflammatory posts are not confined to sharing his own bigotry. They often provide fertile ground for other social media users to express their own hatred.

Pastor previously sentenced over anti-LGBTIQ+ comments

In August 2023, the Western Cape Division of the Equality Court sentenced Bougardt to nine months in prison, suspended for five years, for violating a 2014 court order to stop making anti-LGBTIQ+ statements, as well as a subsequent 2018 suspended sentence.

The court ordered him not to:

“…directly or indirectly publish, post, disseminate, comment on or share, on any social media platform, digital forum or interactive website (including but not limited to Facebook, Twitter (X), TikTok or YouTube) any statements concerning sexual orientation or any other prohibited grounds defined as such in the definition of ‘prohibited grounds’ under section 1(1) (a) and (b) of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000.”