Sir Ian McKellen and Simon Callow, Britain’s most prominent gay film actors, have launched an outspoken attack on Bishop Joseph Devine, the second most senior figure in the Scottish Catholic church, accusing him of preaching “homophobia” from the pulpit.

McKellen and Callow strongly criticised a speech made by Devine earlier this year, in which he singled out the decision to award McKellen an honour from the Queen as an example of the dangers of the increasing power of the gay lobby.

During his speech at St Aloysius college in Glasgow, Devine said: “In this new year’s honours list, actor Ian McKellen was honoured for his work on behalf of homosexuals. A century ago Oscar Wilde was locked up and put in jail.”

He also accused homosexuals of aligning themselves with minority groups to present themselves as people under persecution, citing their attendance at Holocaust memorials.

McKellen, who played Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, criticised the bishop’s “arrogant” attitude, while Callow, labelled him “ignorant”, “stupid” and “profoundly unchristian”.

In a speech to a dinner for Stonewall, the gay rights group he co-founded in 1989, McKellen remarked: “From the pulpit, homophobia is preached by some arrogant religious leaders who think their beliefs are superior to our inborn and, some would say, God-given nature.

“The Bishop of Motherwell addressed his flock and told them how appalled he was that I had received an honour and that 100 years ago I would have been imprisoned like Oscar Wilde. He feels that the Roman Catholic Church is beleaguered in some way.

“ ‘We neglect the gay lobby at our peril’, he said. And when a mother asked him what he would do if his child said he had a mission to be gay, the Bishop of Motherwell replied, sympathising with the mother but not the child, ‘I would try to handle it with a degree of compassion but would not tolerate it.’ ”

Meanwhile, in an interview with The Sunday Times, Callow said senior religious figures could not accept the changing attitudes in society towards gay relationships.

“The bishop is in my view a profoundly ignorant and stupid man in his views,” he said. “If he finds it offensive that gay people want to celebrate those gay people who died in the Holocaust — which was a large number of people — then he’s also profoundly unchristian.

“The church is shocked by how quickly attitudes have changed. All churches have thrived on prejudice, it’s a means of keeping people under their control and I think they are really shocked at how quickly the world has moved on, especially as it isn’t the world they would like it to be, so they cite biblical incidents as being the word of God.”

Callow, 59, who was awarded a CBE in 1999, will appear at an event titled Gladder to Be Gay? at the Scottish parliament on August 20 as part of his role as a spokesman for Stonewall.

McKellen was awarded a knighthood in 1991 for his services to performing arts. He “came out” on Radio 3 in 1988 and has since become one of the UK’s leading spokesman on gay rights, which has led to him receiving death threats.

Last month, the 69-year-old actor met the prime minister Gordon Brown to discuss homophobia in schools.

When contacted by The Sunday Times, McKellen said he did not want to comment further on Bishop Devine and felt it was best to “ignore him”.

Bishop Devine said there was no evidence he had ever preached “homophobia” and insisted he merely used McKellen’s honour to illustrate the “power and the strength of the homosexual lobby”.

“I was certainly not saying that homosexuality is a crime which requires prison, nothing of the kind,” he said. “The focus was on the progress made by homosexuals rather than the suggestion that there should be any draconian laws. It is all very well people in the gay lobby demanding rights, but they are riding roughshod over the rights of others in the process.

“What I am saying is not superior, it’s just sticking up for 2,000 years of Christian values.”

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