I had a good chat with UUP MLAs Basil McCrea and John McCallister, who are determined to project a more positive, progressive and inclusive vision of unionism than that presented by their rivals in the DUP. In their collective response to the 'Iris situation', the pair have saved the UUP from being seen as similarly retrogressive and have managed to assure the large gay unionist population of Northern Ireland that there is a political home for them among unionism.
By being Unionists we should be agreeing to live by the norms and standards of the rest of the United Kingdom. Those norms dictate that if a politician in any part of the UK had come out with the hateful rubbish Iris Robinson recently spewed out, they would have been turfed out asap on their ear by their own party. Don’t think that’s going to happen with Mrs Osama Bin Robbo, so it’s up to other Unionists to stick their colours firmly to the mast on this one, which means publicly agreeing to the core principle of tolerance and respect to all British citizens irrespective of race, creed or sexual orientation.
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