Though Cowards Flinch

Happy families or staged hypocrisy?

And so. It turns out that Iris Robinson, that fearless bible-wielding scourge of homosexuals everywhere, has been coveting her neighbour’s ass. Or at least some other parts of him. The news came amidst a tear-filled confession that Iris Robinson had tried to take her own life, as a result of the affair.

How ironic that such a bigot should fall from her pulpit, a human victim of ‘sin’, ‘sin’ which she castigated so freely from her public platform, comparing gays to child molesters.

The bitter part of the irony, of course, is that such attitudes to sex and the guilt attached to it by extreme Christian religions could well have contributed to the woman trying to take her own life. Indeed, ironies abound, for Iris Robinson once held a portfolio that covered youth suicides, some of which, in Northern Ireland, are driven by the repression visited on those who are gay, or who otherwise do not conform.

Needless to say she held this portfolio whilst retaining the view that homosexuality was a choice people could receive psychiatric treatment to recover from.

Any sympathy I had, and briefly I had some, evaporated when I read of Robinson’s subsequent comments that, “I grieve that I have damaged my profession in Christ but I am comforted that He was able to forgive even me…I do not deserve a second chance but I have been given one.” Rarely have I seen scripture and religion put to such self-serving uses as a public statement that Jesus has forgiven someone for being a total hypocrite.

How convenient for her. I’m sure she’s right and that she has been forgiven, that she has repented honestly. The God I grew up learning about was a forgiving God, though I have long since ceased to believe myself. Yet to push it into what is essentially a political press release? A tad sickening. One wonders if, beyond repenting for adultery, she has repented for casting aspersions at other supposed ‘sinners’, which I recall Jesus having something to say about.

For another individual in the public eye, I might have expressed support. So far as I’m concerned, the public have no business knowing what goes on in the private lives of our representatives. People should be free to make their own choices, on the basis of their own moral codes. I find it distasteful to watch politicians airing their laundry in public.

A squalid affair and a tragic attempt at suicide are unremarkable in many ways, the prurience of the media, and the Currie-esque braggadocio or faux prostration of the politicians involved is usually worse. Yet (another irony) I can’t help but feel that Iris Robinson is being genuine.

Nevertheless, genuine or not, this was an individual who use a high-profile platform to spout such bitter anti-gay bile, in the name of the Almighty, in a country where homophobic attacks are far from unheard of. One might almost think Fate or the Divine (if you believe in that sort of thing) had a sense of ironic justice. Her disarming honesty can’t undo what she has done.

How terrible a person I am for thinking and saying such things, and I await the attempt to seize the moral highground by those who are nowhere to be found when Robinson or the Conservative Cornerstone Group of Faith, Flag and Family are making their fatuous, bigoted pronouncements in parliament.

I love the smell of hypocrisy of an evening.