Iris Robinson, the wife of Northern Ireland’s First Minister, has resigned as a UK Member of Parliament after confessing to marital unfaithfulness. The controversial politician said she had suffered severe mental illness and had attempted suicide as a result of her actions.
Robinson compounded her already-notorious reputation for homophobia in 2008 when she described homosexuality as “disgusting, nauseous, loathsome, shamefully wicked and vile,” and suggested that psychiatric help could turn gay people straight.
Her affair was roughly 18 months ago, which indicates she was engaging in adultery at the same time she went public with her egregious judgments on homosexuals.
The LGBT community will not be surprised that another of its most vicious attackers is revealed to have been harboring ugly sexual sins of her own.
But I bear Iris Robinson no ill will. While homophobia is ugly, so is mental illness, depression and the destructive forces that lead people to attempt suicide. I wish love, peace and healing for Iris and her family. And yes, I also hope that love, peace and healing will translate into a more gracious, understanding and tolerant attitude towards gays and lesbians.
It’s times like this that I pause and understand why such people imagine that we too must live sordid, demon-tormented, erratic, empty, dishonest and damaging lives.
I hope her family are coping OK.
Also, I think that’s Northern Ireland Dave. The bit up the top shaped like a doughnut with a hole in the middle 😛
Sorry Dave. That wasn’t meant to be a smiley face, let alone such a cheery one.
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Doh. Grantdale, an elementary mistake. Thanks for the heads-up.
The video statement by Iris’s husband is pretty gut-wrenching. The guy’s devastated.
Meh, no problems Dave. We all have those alimentary problems at times.
The husband does sound rather kippered. quell surprise.
But, when one claims to want to live and die by the sword… and he also has… it also pays to remember (or at least project) what a sword up the kyber feels like.
Disturbingly, it actually reminded me of the Little Britain sketch with the MP, wife and 2 kids trying to explain the circumstances of how he ended up in a “spit roast”.
Tacky and sad. Tacky as a sad and tacky Tack thingy on Tack-and Sad-day.
” I also hope that love, peace and healing will translate into a more gracious, understanding and tolerant attitude towards gays and lesbians.”
Not a chance. As the bumper sticker says “Christians aren’t smug. Just forgiven.” It’s a free, get-out-of-hell card in Spritual Monopoly (kingdom pending).
Stone her! Stone her! stone her!
Her statement does not even hint regret for her treatment of gay folks and seems directed at rallying her supporters to pity her. I am not sure that she is any less of an enemy to equality despite the exposure of her hypocracy.
It doesn’t surprise me that much that this would happen. I don’t mean this in a snide “Told ya so/FIGures” manner. I mean it makes sense that when people are entrenched in their own dark situations, they lash out at other things to make up for it. Like if a jurist handed down especially harsh sentences on rapists because he had secretly raped someone in the past.