ONE can only hope that a few Catholic priests got up in the pulpits of Northern Ireland today to hail Ian Paisley, Jr as a brother in Christ.Further, one hopes that the same Catholic priests censured the SDLP and Sinn Fein for their censure of Mr Paisley's remarks, which he made in the latest issue of Hot Press.
Mr Paisley said of homosexuality: "I am pretty repulsed by gay and lesbianism . . . I mean, I hate what they do. I think they should just free them[selves] from being gay."
Altogether now: where have we heard this before? Mr Paisley's statements are in fact word for word Catholic teaching on homosexuality. Homosexual acts, according to the Catholic church, are "gravely sinful".
And although it is not sinful to be homosexual (that's progress: it used to be sinful even to be gay), gays must find the strength to resist their "unnatural tendencies" and live celibate lives.
That proves how much God loves them, you see: they've been given the special strength to live in solitary misery.
If they don't, they will burn in hell for all eternity: you see, again in Catholic teaching, it's not enough to confess your sin. To avoid damnation, you need "a firm purpose of amendment".
In other words, you stop sinning. Dead.
Just as Mr Paisley, Junior Minister at the Office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister, said all gays should stop.
His office has responsibility for equality legislation, which has given the SDLP and Sinn Fein cause to get on their high horses. He didn't say, of course, that he would refuse to legislate for gay equality.
He merely said that his private convictions were part of his faith. And just as a matter of history, modern and ancient, Protestant and dissenting religions have a damn sight better record on equality before the law than have convinced Catholics.
So we're left with the question: do the defiantly Catholic SDLP not know the teachings of their own Church? Or are they trying to pretend that it is a more liberal, tolerant body than that to which Mr Paisley belongs?
Either way, their behaviour is hypocritical, contemptible, or hilarious, depending on how you look at it.
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