In support of Iris Robinson

[Gregor Johnston]

There has been a predictable outcry in the media about comments by the DUP MP Iris Robinson in which she objected to Gay Pride in Northern Ireland and denounced homosexuality as an abomination. This raises two issues the first of which is free speech. The pseudo-liberals who have attacked her and even called for her resignation profess to be tolerant yet will not tolerate a public figure who refreshingly has the courage to speak her mind and defies politically correct dogma. The second point it raises is that although her use of the word abomination was unnecessarily emotive language, the fact is that she was only articulating what most ordinary people believe anyway. Homosexuality is inherently unnatural and "Gay Pride" should not be paraded through our streets in open view of families and children, who are of course highly impressionable. The exposure of children to an awareness of homosexuality in the name of education at an increasingly early age is a major concern, (especially since Clause 28 was abolished in Scotland) and is a contributory factor to the breakdown of traditional family structures in society. For example a number of parents in my area have recently withdrawn our children from a first year secondary school history class in protest at a teacher who had devoted an entire lesson to lecturing the kids on "the development of gay liberation". Schools should concentrate on the basic fundamentals of education and avoid political/social indoctrination or engineering of this sort.