Friday, June 06, 2008
Iris looking to ‘turn around’ gays
It was rather fitting that, in the week Brian Feeney labelled the Robinson-led DUP as the ‘Nasty Party,’ First Lady Iris lays out her views on turning around homosexuals. Iris had called for the portrayal of gay people to be banned from TV only a week earlier- when she also complained about not being able to use the term ‘coloureds.’ Ahh, for the good ol’ days Iris, eh???
Chris Donnelly @ 07:51 PM
I have been listening to Nolan more recently. It is fascinating. Last week’s gay/TV taste and decency episode had lots of other things to offer from Iris…
After she had called for a return to the good ol’ style morality proffered by the Bible, some (I suspect now former) DUP voter asked her whether it was moral when Paisley got up in the European Parliament and decried the pope as the antichrist. She refused to condemn the act, noting that it was Paisley’s own business. Then, when told that the man had voted for her, she called him ‘sad’, and that she did not need his vote if that was what he based his decision on! Such arrogance!
She doesn’t seem to be all that familiar with the moral standards she expects others to follow, does she?
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 10:10 PMcensor me...?
ROFLMAO at anon.
Robinsons are a while away from expemse expose… and retribution.... ets she how her views are whe taxpaer is nit subsidsing her, having said that he electorate would as I said vote fpr a dupe bladder on stick.... so chnage of frontespiece is irrelevant.
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 10:13 PMI wonder how this “psychiatrist” works his magic? Does he convert a “woofter” by continually exposing him to the image an irresistably beautiful Titian-haired woman who not only exudes the decency of Christian morality and right political thinking but is also maybe “a right goer” on the side? I am not sure how these things work.
An enterprising young assistant television producer might suggest a Wife Swap episode where an “Iris” from NI spends a week with “Graham” from Cork. I would watch that. Would you?
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 10:28 PMFair play for this one at the end of the article:
“In a statement the Royal College of Psychiatrists said that homosexuality was not a psychiatric disorder.”Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 10:41 PMThat Sinn Fein / IRA has a dark, fairly recent past, has no bearing on Iris Robinson’s attitudes as a dark-age, medieval relic.
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 10:43 PMSo what happens to the gays who refuse to turn then Iris? Will it be large crowds of DUP fundamentalists with pitchforks and burning pitches of turf next going after them? Honestly you couldn’t make it up could you? What about left handed people, southpaws, are they to be turned next? People who eat the chocolate off the biscuit first? If this was the wife of the British PM or the spouse of the Scottish & Welsh First Minister there would be demands for resignations, statements in the House, apologies etc. No one is denying Mrs Robinson entitlement to her opinion but given her profile and public office AND on the day a young fella was beaten because of his sexuality it’s a damn disgrace. She is after all the wife of the First Minister and should learn to act and speak with the responsibility of her husband’s office in mind. I agree with a previous poster. Gay groups should post invitations to her and Peter and if they keep getting turned down consult the Equality Commission.
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 10:43 PMChris
This is not a matter to be taken lightly, Peter Robinson and his wife are clearly nasty bigots, both believe homosexuality is a sin and an abomination, when Mrs Robinson complains that she should be able to use the word colored, she is no different from those who use words like nigger, and the like. I have no doubt she feels she should also have the right to buy gollywogs. Racists are so predictable, they understand they are unable to come at race issues head on so they prattle on about political correctness.I use the word bigots to describe the Robinson’s for these reasons, they do not give a fig about Black people finding the word colored offensive, nor do they care that what Mrs Robinson said about Gay people would cause many people Gays and others enormous offense. All they care about is their rights. Hence the are racist and sexist bigots.
[Mick before you consider censoring my post, I would remind you you have allowed this bigoted woman’s words to appear on this blog, words that I find totally offense, as her husband has not disowned her words I have taken it as read that he is a racist and sexual bigot too.]
Chris I am not surprised you wish to turn this matter into a joke, [shame on you for trying to do so] As your party is willing to share power with these people. How SF sit in government along side such people is beyond me. If you had set a time line to bed the Brits peace process in I could have just about understood, but SF now seem willing to serve alongside the DUP in perpetuity.
I only blogged today on Organized Rage about the north being in the dark ages as far as race, a woman’s right to choose and gay rights are concerned. but even I never thought I would see such a blatant piece of homophobia coming from the leader of the DUP’’s own family. christ this woman makes the BNP look progressive.
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 10:53 PMGuys,
I’ve just seen this thread, so the censoring had nothing to do with me. But, this is inevitably difficult territory, not least because people feel so passionate about the subject (not least because of the tragic circumstances in which the discussion is taking place).
Please have at the subject by all means, but try to keep it civil!
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 10:57 PMThe gay thing is bad enough. But the coloured thing really sets the whole lot off. What does it say about us that we have elected the politicians we have? The worst of it is, I doubt a single vote will be lost because of this once the traditional bogeyman is raised at election time.
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 11:09 PMGaribaldy, it also explains why we have a whole raft of people like me, secular liberal unionists who have never had a party to vote for our entire lives.
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 11:13 PMI guess the question for people like yourself is if you want to put the secularism above the unionism, especially now that the constitutional question hsa been successfully parked.
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 11:22 PMI havent posted on here before but I wanted to share my thoughts.
No doubt I will be shouted down like Iris.
I would first like to say that Iris represents the views of many people like myself: This is how she got elected.
You may not like it, but this is the way it is.
Why should Iris Robinson keep her beliefs seperate from her role as MLA? Why should Peter Robinson?
I believe homosexuality is a sin. I believe that a hetrosexual couple living together before marriage is a sin. Do I hate these people? No. Do i believe what they are doing is right? No. This may be offensive to them, but these are still my beliefs. Should I hid or refrain from expressing my beliefs becaue they offend people?
If i became First Minister should I hid my beliefs? No of course not.
Iris is right in state firmly what she believes. She is not inciting anyone to hurt or harm homosexuals, and she condemned the attack on the young man.
The real reason why she is being derided is because she is a Christan with Christian beliefs, and many people in this country, and most people on this blog do not like this fact.
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 11:31 PMIf anyone is looking for hate filled speeches just look at the above posts, drooling with bigotry. Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams murder their way thorugh the last 40 years and not a peep..FFS. you`re all sick bastards
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 11:34 PMTAFKABO, there are thousands of us in the same boat.
I wish I knew the solution.
Forming another unionist party would be pathetic. Where do we anchor? UUP? The TUV will last no longer than Bob or Cedric,, and mainland politics is so devoid of ideology, same with RoI.
Is the Alliance revival on the horizon? A bit like Hawkwind, anyone over 35 will understand.Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 11:34 PMTypical DUP eh? “Homosexuals can be turned around”, “we’re not Irish”, “Peter Robinson has our support” and so forth…
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 11:36 PM[Try that again, and you are out, permanently - mods]
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 11:37 PMDriftwood,
Surely the TUV is filled with people who think this way. I’d hardly describe it as the home of secular liberalism.
At this point, surely the question is can we build a shared future while we have our own government; the united community group in the assembly seems to me to offer a way forward for people of broadly progressive politics. The Gilliland European candidacy also demonstrated the potential to achieve positive developments.
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 11:46 PMGordon,
As far as I’m aware the DUP did not go before the electorate as the Christian democratic unionist party, nor did Mr Robinson go before the electorate expresing the views his wife has now publicly expressed, which I consider racist and homophobic, . Did he campaign to call black people colored. Was it part of the DUP manifesto to claim that homosexuality is an abomination? perhaps I missed that.
Can you not see that placing people in the hands of a psychiatrist because they are gay is an abomination, not least because of the historical connotations involved here. Pink stars and all that.
In the past having racist and homophobic views has not been a personal thing, nor are Christian free of guilt for persecuting and murdering black people and gays, [see slavery and the role of christian churches in nazi germany]
The fact that you are unwilling to see the fears people like me have due to Mrs Robinson’s words, is what I would call an abomination.
I wish you well.
Posted by on Jun 06, 2008 @ 11:52 PMI always thought that Iris dressed a little bit raunchy most times, maybe even tarty, roaring red lipstick, heavy mascara and eye shadow, etc… I’m sure the good clean livin’ staunch Free Presbyterian folk thought the very same but were afraid to say something. Iris in her attire would give the ladies of the night a run for their money....and all this from so called god fearing folk. Not only that but she’s married to mister stiff upper lip himself.
We had Ian junior last year and now this..So is Iris wiiling to offer her womanly services to return gay men onto the straight road of Christ.
Posted by on Jun 07, 2008 @ 12:34 AMGordon,
I do not doubt the sincerity of your Christian beliefs nor would I deride whatever comfort they might afford you in the difficult business of attempting to understand this confusion of life in which we find ourselves. I have no answer for it myself, nor yet have I found one - or at least one which is worthy of imposing upon others. Yet I find that I am I am able to go along in life, to co-operate with my fellow human beings in the spirit of give and take in friendship and love and find that that attitude is generally respected and reciprocated.
In this respect I find that homosexual men and women do not differ from other neighbours. But then there are those who profess first to have a religious identity - and thus qualifying - any identity of neighbourlieness they might feel obliged to contribute to by virtue of proximity. Often I find in these circumstances that the profession of neighbourliness was simply a lie and the lie was justified by their religion, more often than not their Christian religion.
Such people do not inspire Chistianity as a code for living and would seem uninspired themselves by the parable that Jesus spoke of the man who went up from Jerusalem to Jericho.Posted by on Jun 07, 2008 @ 12:45 AMRory: Does he convert a “woofter” by ...
While I think Iris was both wrong and wrong headed, I do find it odd that people who line up on each side of the nature/nurture (or genetics/environment) debate, on almost every topic, suddenly swap sides for this particular topic.
On this topic, Iris clearly comes down on the nurture side, for instance. It’s a pity that she is not more tolerant with it - but most of the actual derogatory terminology is coming from those who are putting words in her mouth. Isn’t what she said already bad enough for even a republican to quote her accurately?
Posted by on Jun 07, 2008 @ 12:45 AMI guess the question for people like yourself is if you want to put the secularism above the unionism, especially now that the constitutional question hsa been successfully parked.
Well I’m now living in France,though I can still vote, the question is do I want to?
I raised the point a few weeks ago that I no longer see a need for any “unionist” parties at all, nationalist parties obviously exist to accomodate those who want a united Ireland, but what do unionist parties exist for exactly?Posted by on Jun 07, 2008 @ 12:51 AMDon’t know why unionist parties still need to exist. Except it seems to remind us of the value of speaking before engaging your brain and why the Enlightenment was a good thing.
Posted by on Jun 07, 2008 @ 12:58 AMThis is a tough one. I’m glad Chris blogged the story. But the discussion of such is fraught with deep problems. Not least because Ireland, north and south, is often not as liberal as it often imagines itself to be. Ironically, perhaps, profound social conservatism has been one of the things that unites us rather than divides us.
Actually the Nolan Show from yesterday is well worth listening to (from start to end): http://tinyurl.com/4cm2uu.
Iris was not, as Catriona was suggesting at the outset, in breach of any law. And it would undoubtedly be a great tragedy if all our politicians were to bury their individual conscience for the sake of the so-called ‘greater good’.
And it also should be noted that although there are some obvious parallels (already hinted at in the thread), unlike Hillary Clinton, Mrs Robinson has her own mandate in her own right and is entitled to her own public voice.
But here’s the rub, it seems to me. How does a fundamentalist politician deal with being a legislator and being a believer at the same time? Each loads onerous yet sometimes conflicting responsibilities upon their back. As Paul points out here, http://tinyurl.com/4pjfpc:
As the conflicts in Northern Ireland recede, it can be reasonably hoped that the influence of radical protestantism will decline. The way that a direct internal party democracy brought the Ulster Unionist Party to the brink of destruction a few years ago, the DUP may have to weather storms in which it’s own emerging aristocratic minority – those with a responsibility to serve the general will and thereby ensure their party’s electability – will come into conflict with the larger body of opinion within their party – the negativists – who know only what they are against.
I would suggest (as an extension of the previous posts) that the simplistic and disastrous attitudes to internal democracy within the Unionist parties can be explained by the dominance that evangelical protestantism has over Unionism. By thrusting radical Unionism into government, HMG may be exposing the DUP to the consequences of their own puritanism.
There is a paradox in Maurice Morrow’s entirely accurate observation that Ian Paisley saw off the the last of ‘Big House Unionism’. It may be tempting to see the re-emergence of the Liberal tendency (dominant in Down and Antrim) that was submerged into a Tory dominated Unionist alliance from the 1880s onwards in the late ascendancy of the DUP.
But in the wider provenance of a modern (or post modern) society there may need to be a conscious regeneration of an older, perhaps more secular, Protestant ethic across the whole of Northern Ireland. Or the rediscovery and popularisation of the rather mundane genius of civil and religious freedom?
That surely has to include people whose sexuality errs against the relgious norm? And those who believe it to be a sin? At the very least, is that not the price of freedom?
Posted by on Jun 07, 2008 @ 01:06 AMGordon.
What strikes me about your post, as with recent comments by Iris Robinson is the cloying self pity and misplaced sense of victimhood.
So you feel sorry for yourself that some of us find your views repugnant? boo hoo, I suggest you grow a pair or scuttle off back under whatever religious rock you crawled out from.
I’m an atheist secular liberal and I know that religious people find a lot of my views equally repugnant, but I don’t lose sleep over it, and I don’t premise every post with self pity, it’s what happens when people are allowed to express differing opinions.
I heard iris in the House of Commis a week or so ago, demanding her due respect as a Christian, she feels her beliefs give her some privellaged status the rest of us have to aknowledge.
Bollox to that.
There is one difference though, no one attacks Chrisitians based uon any speeches of mine, I don’t propogate hatred of Chrisitians calling them an abomination, if Christians are attacked, it’s usually another sect of Christianity doing the attacking.
Gay bashing is endemic in Northern Ireland, and we simply can’t divorce the fact that people hate gays enough to attack them with the speeches of leading politicians who insist on the right to hate homsexuality because their book of fairy tales tells them to.Posted by on Jun 07, 2008 @ 01:06 AM
