Maginnis a dinosaur in our LGBT midst

Today we had a prime example of how Northern Ireland's political leaders are not the people to help overcome the negative image that the Equality Commission found the people of Northern Ireland have here.

Lord Maginnis the former MP  for Fermanagh and South Tyrone started the Nolan Show saying:

"It is unnatural and I don't think that society as a whole, requires to have imposed on it something that is unnatural.I certainly don't think there should be an obligation on my church to carry out gay marriage."

"I can't dictate how people live their lives. I would be concerned for young children that they would be influenced by these people. Remember this is not something private like your marriage or my marriage. This is something that is aggressive, that is demanding."

"All [relationships] are not equal in the eyes of many, many people."

He then went on to draw a comparison between homosexual love and bestiality. Calling equal marriage a rung on the ladder towards allowing man to marry his dog, or women her horse etc. presumably.

"I do not believe we should be doing anything to encourage this deviant practise."

He also when asked what people attracted to people of the same sex should do, he said he was not a doctor or psychiatrist.  Before saying he did not know if it was natural or a learnt condition, implying that there was some sort of cure.

He then equated homosexuality to pedophilia.

 As John O'Doherty of the Rainbow Project when he was allowed to come back went on to say that this is the level of debate that our political leaders which leads to 27% of the population saying they would mind a gay, lesbian or bisexual person living next door, compared to 14% in 2005, while 42% unhappy about them becoming an in-law, a rise of 13 percentage points over the last six years. Also, around a third of people (35%) would mind a transgender person as a work colleague, rising to 40% as a neighbour and 53% as an in-law.

So somehow according to Maginnis what happens between and man and his wife in their bedroom is private, yet between a homosexual couple, that is not!

The UUP have distanced themselves from Lord Maginnis's comments. But sadly there are others in the Unionist community who have expressed similar thoughts to him in recent times. Northern Ireland political leaders need to look up to their responsibility

Update as well as the UUP's statement the SDLP and Alliance. As well as the Rainbow Project's response.