Homophobic NI (christian) MP outs herself

19 June 2008 · Comments 

Northern Ireland, that bastion of (arguably religiously supported) sectarian bullshit can now proudly lay claim to another religious born-again bigot, this time in the form of DUP Strangford assembly member Iris Robinson.

Robinson, a born-again christian (apparently she didn’t quite get it right the first time) is quoted as saying that homosexuality was an abomination when being interviewed by the BBC.

Using such words, I suspect that she has pulled this wholesale from her bible and not actually given the matter much thought which, considering the shit that some people come out with when using scripture as a basis for opinion, really doesn’t surprise me whatsoever.

She was also recorded as saying that she has a very lovely [christian] psychiatrist that works in her offices, and that both she and he would be glad of the opportunity to cure any homosexuals.

Police have confirmed that they’re investigating a complain made about Robinson’s statements on homosexuality.

[Edit: this is the conversation that has been reported to the police]

The portion of Mrs Robinson’s radio interview that was reported to the police as a hate crime was the following:

Stephen Nolan: Do you think for example that homosexuality is disgusting?
Iris Robinson: Absolutely
Stephen Nolan: Do you think that homosexuality should be loathed?
Iris Robinson: Absolutely
Stephen Nolan: Do you think it is right for people to have a physical disgust towards homosexuality?
Iris Robinson: Absolutely
Stephen Nolan: Does it make you nauseous?
Iris Robinson: Yes
Stephen Nolan: Do you think that it is something that is shamefully wicked and vile?
Iris Robinson: Yes, of course it is, it’s an abomination.

Source: Pink News

[/end of edit]

A petition to have the PM issue a reprimand has appeared on the 10 Downing Street web site.

Various news articles linked from this Facebook group.

This also leads me to wonder if we should take a leaf from The Little Book of Popular Mealy-Mouthed Sanctimonious Apologist Soundbites for Christians: they have “love the sinner, hate the sin”, so shouldn’t we of a more liberal (as in freedom) have something similar? “Love the bigot, hate the bigotry” has a nice ring to it.

Saying that, I don’t love this — or any other — bigot. I detest her and others of that ilk precisely because they are bigots.

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Ratzinger talks (more) bollocks

1 December 2007 · Comments 

I was in the pub yesterday, and was made aware that catholic wingnut-in-chief Ratzinger had been bad-mouthing science and atheism by playing the old Marxism=teh evul! card and playing up christianity because it offers “hope”. Earlier today, I saw a few posts on blogs (The Freethinker, Atheist Ethicist - highly recommended) and articles in the press (The Times, Reuters) but none of them actually linked to Darth Benedict’s diatribe.

So, after a bit of googling, I decided to read what he actually wrote.

Unsurprisingly, Ratzinger’s ‘spe salvi‘ is simply an over-long morass of groundless assertions, divinely inspired hate-speech and, of course, a generous sprinkling of cherry-picked bible verses. i.e. the usual bollocks.

I’m guessing that this is the sort of level of being-verbose-about-religion-yet-saying-nothing (which I will now start to call “theonasm” - q.v. pleonasm) that Alister McGrath can only aspire to. Here’s a couple of samples:

Life is not a simple product of laws and the randomness of matter, but within everything and at the same time above everything, there is a personal will, there is a Spirit who in Jesus has revealed himself as Love.

Faith is not merely a personal reaching out towards things to come that are still totally absent: it gives us something. It gives us even now something of the reality we are waiting for, and this present reality constitutes for us a “proof” of the things that are still unseen. Faith draws the future into the present, so that it is no longer simply a “not yet”. The fact that this future exists changes the present; the present is touched by the future reality, and thus the things of the future spill over into those of the present and those of the present into those of the future.

See? Utter bollocks.

“Theonasm”… I like it.

/hattip to that random guy in the pub.

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