Mahinda Samarasinghe makes feeble attempt to justify Sirisena’s butterfly comment

Making a feeble and clumsy attempt to whitewash the homophobic references made by President Maithripala Sirisena at the recent rally held in Battaramulla, Co-Cabinet Spokesperson Mahinda Samarasinghe yesterday said President Maithripala Sirisena did not make any sexual innuendo when he made a reference to ‘Butterflies’ when speaking of Premier Ranil Wickramasinghe and his group of Ministers. “They entered in to a butterfly way of life” the President had said which was taken as a homophobic comment made against Wickramasinghe. 

“What he means was the UNP group like Butterflies would fly from flower to flower and meddle in everything” he said as an explanation. However when journalists brought up the fact that in society ‘butterfly’ is accepted as a derogatory term against homosexuals, Samarasinghe asked the journalists not to give the word their own interpretation. “Butterfly is just an innocent animal” he said reiterating that it was not a homophobic comment. He also admitted that people are using the comment made to cross over as well. 

However the local LGBT community taking offence have launched a series of protests against the pathetic comments made by the President. Senior Lecturer of University of Colombo and Activist T. Waradas has called on the President to apologies for hurting the sentiments of the community.