The immoral majority: anti-gay, anti-abortion and creationists ...
CONCERNS are growing about Theresa May’s reliance on a right-wing, religious party from Northern Ireland to prop up her wounded Government.
In a pointed intervention, Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson revealed she pressed May on challenging the Democratic Unionist Party on its anti-gay rights record. The DUP is the largest party in the suspended Northern Ireland Assembly – power-sharing collapsed after Sinn Fein moved a motion of no confidence in the DUP administration – but is now set to have an unprecedented role in Westminster. Founded by the late firebrand preacher Ian Paisley, the DUP is pro-Union and popular with working-class Protestants. Its strong anti-liberal streak is already ringing alarm bells among moderate voters in the UK. The DUP is opposed to gay marriage and has ensured Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that has not legalised same-sex unions.
Paisley’s son, Ian Jr, who is one of the DUP’s 10-strong contingent at Westminster, famously said he was “repulsed” by gay people and described homosexuality as “immoral, offensive and obnoxious.” The DUP health minister in 2015 said: “The facts show that certainly you don’t bring a child up in a homosexual relationship ... that child is far more likely to be abused or neglected ... in a non-stable marriage.”
Former DUP leader Peter Robinson once hit out at the Equality Commission’s decision to fund a legal action against a bakery that refused to put a pro-same sex-marriage slogan on a cake. His successor, Arlene Foster, has also defended her party’s position on gay rights and claimed that “online abuse” of the DUP stance had hardened her position: “Do they seriously think they are going to influence me by sending me abuse? No, in fact, they are going to send me in the opposite direction and people need to reflect on that.” Foster was at the centre of the socalled “cash for ash” scheme – which brought down the Stormont executive in January. Under the scheme, officially titled the Renewable Heat Incentive, users who spent £1 on green heating systems were given £1.60 in subsidies, with no cap on how much they could earn. It is estimated that the scheme will cost the taxpayer more than £400m by 2036 when it expires. On the environment, while climate change denial is not official DUP policy, senior party figures are well-known for their scepticism. Sammy Wilson, MP for East Antrim, previously served as Northern Ireland’s Environment Minister and