A campaign to "save the DUP" from a slide into secularisation and political pragmatism has been launched with the promise of a "polite, peaceful and prayerful" protest at the party's conference.
Leaflets sent anonymously to party members bewail the "marginalisation and ridicule of born-again believers within the party" and the DUP's "downward trend as regards moral issues".
Issues cited on the leaflet include civil partnerships – "the lack of any moral leadership, and indeed any kind of leadership, from the party as regards the use of council facilities for homosexual partnership ceremonies".
"We wish to see the party saved from its current trend of secularisation, and that born-again Christians with a strong moral conscience will not be ignored or marginalised by the party core," states the leaflet.
Those behind the leaflet say they will hold a protest at Saturday's DUP conference.
A DUP spokesman last night (Monday) confirmed that the party was aware of the leaflet campaign.
"We are aware of the circulation of this leaflet by some anonymous individual," he said.
The leaflet campaign was a sign of strain between the DUP's 'spiritual' and 'political' wings at "grass-roots level", according to a party source.
