A tribunal struck to deal with any infractions to election laws has found former presidential candidate Nelson Zavala to have contravened rules in a resolution created by the national Elections Council. The council had prohibited candidates from making discriminatory speech attacking personal integrity.

Zavala is an evangelical pastor who ran for president for the PRE party and came in last place in the February elections.

The tribunal found that Zavala on several occasions made speeches that it considers homophobic. The tribunal has sentenced Zavala to pay a fine of $3,100 (ten times what a person on minimum wage would make in a month), and his political rights have been suspended for a year. He cannot run, vote or serve in public service.

The pastor, who attended the hearing, said he will appeal, and made the following statement: “I will always defend God’s principles, and the true Ecuadorian family. I’ll keep calling that which is immoral immoral, I will not take that back.”

LGBT activists who launched the complaint said the purpose of the suit was to prove to the public that homophobic speech is inconstitutional.

The judge in the case sent the file to the district attorney, to evaluate whether Zavala is worth prosecuting for a hate crime for instigating discrimination of the LGBT community. A conviction for hate crime would carry a sentence of anywhere from six months to three years of jail time.