DAERA Minister Andrew Muir has given a wide-ranging interview with Liam Tunney in the Beltel. Still, the bit that is being highlighted is his comments about the past treatment of the LGBT community. From the article:
A recent BBC documentary —Blood on the Dancefloor — told the story of Darren’s life and murder. It also explored the attitude of the media and security forces towards the LGBT community.
Mr Muir, who contributed to the programme, said the state should apologise for how the community was treated in the past.
“There’s a journey to be had before we could get to this, but there needs to be a state apology to LGBT people for the suffering, hurt and pain that was inflicted upon them,” he said.
“The documentary around Darren was important because it was remembering a life lost, but also remembering what life was like then and how things have changed in some aspects.
“I think the recognition in terms of members of the community who were murdered, over the years and decades ahead there is going to have to be a collective recognition of those.
“Talking about Darren’s murder was really difficult. It brought home to me what life was like in the 1990s and also the particular issues in terms of policing at that time and Darren’s senseless murder.
“On Saturday, I visited Darren’s grave. What happened to him was very sad and we need to remember everyone who is not with us any more.”
There are two ways you can look at this. One the state has a history of treating huge swathes of the population badly. Poor people, orphans, unmarried mothers, prisoners, people with mental health problems, various medical scandals, abuse in schools, etc. It would probably be quicker to say who the state did not treat badly at some point.
The second way you can look at it is that apologies don’t cost much and can mean a lot to the people affected. You get the feeling that we could have saved hundreds of millions on all our various inquiries over the years if the state had just admitted what they had done and offered an apology.
But I suppose life is never that simple…
I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring to write about big ideas in society. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.
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