LGBT News Jim Wells resigns as Northern Ireland health minister

Glad to see that. Problem is, people say these things, and then cover up and say 'sorry, I didn't really mean what I said'. But of course they did. They actually do in their minds link being gay with child abuse. And it plays well with a certain constituency, as Nigel Farage well knows.

 

The whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

It's good news that he resigning but he and his party (DUP) are saying it's for personal reasons as his wife is sick. OK, understandable, but why now? Instead of admitting they were wrong about their disgusting comments, they're sweeping it under the carpet. They need to just admit that they clearly need to wake up to reality that the LGBT community have far more support than they expected and that they seriously need to review their policies against them. The DUP are blatantly homophobic. They have said gay people are just as bad as pedophiles, that gay people are responsible for natural disasters - this gay abuse comment from Jim Wells is just the tip of the iceberg. This is the party's mentality and as the DUP are responsible for the position of Health Minister until the next assembly election, they'll just replace Wells with someone exactly like him. Wells's predecessor was Edwin Poots, who wasted £40000 of taxpayer money trying to prevent gay people from adopting. Who refused to lift the ban on gay men donating blood even though the courts ruled it was unlawful.

They have never, ever had to face the repercussions of the things they say because no matter what, our stupid population will continue to vote green and orange and the DUP will continue to get elected. So this is what we're stuck with. People can rant and rave about how backwards the DUP are, but when they get to the polling station, they'll think 'Oh well, we need the DUP in to get a unionist majority at Stormont - don't want Sinn Fein to have all the power' and voila - nothing ever changes.

Even in my constituency, there has been a pact between the two largest unionist parties. One will drop out so that all the unionist votes will go to the other and get a clear majority over the nationalist and neutral candidates. And who is this lucky candidate who is now promised this majority? Surprise, surprise, IT'S THE DUP. These sectarian tactics take all the choice away from the voters. They don't care about what the people want. All they care about is getting into power and keeping it. There's absolutely no point in me voting now because the DUP is going to get the majority no matter what.

Northern Ireland needs a massive reality check. And by that, I mean a massive kick up the ass. As long as we hold on to past grudges, we will be stuck with these dinosaurs in government who just parade around discriminating and insulting various groups of the population (not just the LGBT community - women, and the immigrant community too).

 

That's just the nature of multi-party democracy. You end up voting for the party closest to your views, even if their views on some things repulse you.

As someone once said, multi-party democracy is like a multiple choice exam question. You think you have four options to chose from, but when you look at them, two are the same as each other, two are barking mad, and if you want to say something else, you can't.

 

It's not quite as simple as that. There are plenty of alternative unionist parties who don't make disgusting homophobic/xenophobic comments or waste massive amounts of taxpayer money pursuing their own bigoted agendas. But the DUP is the biggest unionist party so people continue throw their lot in with them, even if they disagree with their policies or think they're scum. Most people don't even read up on their party policy before they vote. And why? Because of a completely idiotic 'us and them' mentality which isn't normal and doesn't progress our society one iota. In Great Britain, any politician who tried any of the following stuff would have to quit politics or would have all their support dropped faster than a stone. There's a reason why its not the same over here, because people put their own tribal mentality first.

DUP wastes £40,000 of public money trying to prevent gay couples and single people adopting

DUP minister screws up housing contracts
DUP cover up over same ministers dodgy dealings

Sinn Fein claim £700,000 in expenses for phony research company

etc. etc.

Obviously not all the Northern Irish think and vote in this way and general public opinion is starting to slowly progress. But we still can't pretend that this still isn't a problem and it should be called out for what it is - tribalism.

 

OK. Point taken. I understand politics in NI is different to mainland Britain. I grew up in Liverpool, the only place in England to have an Orange March on 12 July, so I understand sectarianism does exist, and it is ugly.

I suppose the DUP still has ties to the Free Presbyterian Church and all that - not likely to be terribly enlightened on LGBT issues.

 

The main thing to understand is that NI is significantly more religious than the mainland and we all know what many religious types think of homosexuality! It is extremely likely that the DUP will be in a 3 way coalition with the Tories and Lib Dems in 2 weeks time so that may well produce a change in NI policy.

 

The DUP have already ruled out being part of a Westminister coalition.

The issue of gay marriage in Northern Ireland was devolved to Stormont so Cameron and Clegg have absolutely no say in it.

Linky

 

And the SNP said that the referendum was a once in a lifetime opportunity, our life expectancy must be awful short as they want one in 5 years time! The next government will be a compromise, parties will have to give to get, no party would ever say no to a place in government for the sake of a handful of policies.

 

:lol: Yeah, guess we can never really trust a politician to stick to their word. In this case, I really hope they do. The DUP would just get laughed straight out of Westminister.