Her assurances over gay rights, amid DUP talks

While the party insists it is protecting the “traditional” definition of marriage, critics have denounced its stance as homophobic.

Going back decades, the DUP was at the vanguard of the failed Save Ulster from Sodomy movement that campaigned against the 1982 legalisation of homosexual sex in Northern Ireland.

In more recent times, former first minister Peter Robinson’s wife Iris, then an MP, described homosexuality as an “abomination”, while the MP son of Dr Paisley, Ian Paisley Jr, said he felt “repulsed” by homosexual acts.

A party councillor in Ballymena reportedly claimed Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than 1,500 people in the US, was God’s revenge for New Orleans hosting an annual gay pride event.

Former DUP Stormont minister Edwin Poots once hit out at a gay rugby team in Belfast, accusing it of introducing a sporting “apartheid” against heterosexual players.

Mr Poots also ended up in court for upholding a ban on gay men giving blood and, in a separate case, objecting to gay couples adopting. In the former case an appeal judge overturned a finding that he was motivated by bias.

In the 2015 general election campaign, DUP health minister Jim Wells resigned amid a controversy about remarks he made about same sex couples.

Defending her party’s stance on gay marriage in a recent interview, leader Arlene Foster insisted those who characterised the DUP as antigay were wide of the mark.

“They are wrong and they need to understand why we take those positions from a faith point of view and why we want to protect the definition of marriage,” she said.

“I could not care less what people get up to in terms of their sexuality, that’s not a matter for me. When it becomes a matter for me is when people try to redefine marriage.”

An online petition in objection to the Tories and DUP forming a minority government has gathered more than 300,000 signatures.

Conservative former Northern Ireland secretary Owen Paterson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I don’t see many major social issues coming up in the next Parliament.

“You might get a debate, I suppose, on further reduction of abortion times.

“But the stuff you mention like gay rights and all that, that is all devolved.

“It’s not only a free vote issue, most of this, but it’s nearly all devolved and that’s down to the politicians in Northern Ireland to resolve.”

Told of Ms Davidson’s concerns about the potential reversal of gay rights, Mr Paterson said: “No, I don’t see that at all.

“She’s perfectly fair to raise it ... these issues are devolved, and if they were sorted in the UK Parliament they’d be free vote issues. I really don’t see them colouring the talks.”