A majority of Stormont assembly members have for the first time voted to legalise same-sex marriage in the Six Counties , but a voting mechanism triggered by the Democratic Unionists means the law change will not happen.
The vote is the fifth attempt to make gay marriage legal in the Six Counties.
Peter Robinson was rejected for a peerage according to Private Eye magazine. Gee I wonder why?
According to the Guardian newspaper David Cameron invited the DUP MPs, who make up the fourth largest party at Westminster, to a drinks party In the No 10 garden on Wednesday evening last week. The Tories are worried about the result next British General Election. And may see the Orange Card as the one to play.
Gregory Campbell
3 (10%)
Arlene Foster
5 (17%)
Jeffrey Donaldson
3 (10%)
Nigel Dodds
5 (17%)
Ian Paisley Junior
2 (7%)
Sammy Wilson
5 (17%)
Simon Hamilton
3 (10%)
Somebody else
2 (7%)
Don't Know
0 (0%)
28 Votes
After last night's blitzkrieg on Peter Robinson's leadership by Ian Paisley Senior.Who will be the next leader of the Democratic Unionist Party? Is the question everyone is asking. Will it be Sammy Wilson he seems to have a foot in both camps. Or will it be hardliner Gregory Campbell just the type of guy you need to bang heads together. Arlene Foster she once had a good relationship with Big Ian by all accounts but will the DUP accept a female leader? Simon Hamilton the young pretender with clean hands but he maybe to modern for the backwoodsmen. Or perhaps somebody else. Vote in my poll for the candidate you think will win not the one that you want to win.
In an advert on page 22 of today’s News Letter, the church says that for many years there has been “a concerted attempt to change the thinking of Northern Ireland children, particularly Protestant children, within the state system of education”.
It adds: “We believe that the present pursuit of shared education has more behind it than the saving of scarce resources. There is another agenda at work. Shared education in many cases is a front for ecumenism and also for the secular lobby to influence, change and direct the thinking of children to suit their agenda.”
The church also cited a wide range of shared education programmes.
The Church was founded by Ian Paisley Senior in 1951.Ian Paisley also founded the Democratic Unionist Party in 1971. The current DUP leader Peter Robinson has in recent times come out as a supporter of integrated education.
Mrs Patterson apparently made the remarks on Facebook.
It was in reply to a post from someone else foreseeing an imaginary attack on the parade in which several people including Sinn Féin figures are killed.
A response under Ruth Patterson's profile asked: "... Who cares how we would be judged, we would have done a great service to Northern Ireland and the world."
Asked by the BBC if she had written those words, Mrs Patterson said "That was on a private page. I can't comment on that at the moment."
“Have people learned nothing about the way these things operate in Northern Ireland? If you deny someone the right to do something – very often the reaction is precisely the opposite of what you desired.” So says Jeffrey Donaldson the DUP MP and well known film buff about the flying of flags.
Six days after the broadcast of a Spotlight Special programme about Nelson McCausland and the BBC have said they have not received any legal writs from the DUP. This is despite Peter Robinson threatening immediate legal action if the TV programme was broadcast. This is not the first time the DUP have threatened legal action against the BBC. A previous Spotlight programme about the leaders wife and her sexual relationship with a teenage businessman.And her financial involvement with two local property developers also brought threats of legal action that didn't eventually materialize. The days of the DUP hiding behind the law seem to be well and truly over.
So what are the DUP trying to hide? They have issued a petition of concern regarding Nelson McCausland and the Red Sky Affair up at Stormont. Which means they can veto any outcome of the debate up there on Monday. I don't think those who drew up these rules meant for them to be used to cover up alleged corruption and abuse of power.
According to Robin Swann the UUP MLA Nelson McCausland the Social Development Minister should step aside now. This is following last night's BBC Spotlight Special TV programme. Jenny Palmer a DUP councillor in Lisburn and a member of the Housing Executive Board blew the whistle on Red Sky and the Housing Executive. Ms Palmer told the programme: "He (Mr Stephen Brimstone a Special Advisor to Nelson McCausland) said 'the party comes first, you do what you're told', otherwise there's no point in me being on the board, if I wasn't prepared to do what they asked me to do."
Compare and Contrast:
Iris Robinson launched a scathing attack on integrated education in 2007 saying it is "founded primarily on sectarianism".
Mrs Robinson also said the integrated lobby was discouraging support with the "high handed and arrogant stance perpetually adopted by its public proponents".
She added that it thrived off sectarianism and was part of a wider programme of social engineering driven by government.
Mrs Robinson's comments were made after government rejected a proposal for a new integrated post-primary school – Rowallane College.
She said the philosophy of the integrated lobby "consists of nothing else other than self-righteous, pompous claims of reconciliation, no more amazing than claiming they can fit 200 people into the back seat of a Mini".
"Far from transcending sectarianism with some stupendous alternative for the provision of education in Northern Ireland, the integrated lobby is an integral part of that sectarian system and feeds off it – without it, it would starve and die," she added.
"It is a philosophy founded primarily on sectarianism, as opposed to the delivery of education and is part of a wider programme of social engineering driven by the government and abetted by the holier than thou section of our population.
"I will, therefore, never act in such a fashion as to further jeopardise the delivery of education to the overwhelming majority of our children, simply to please the politically tainted demands of the tiny minority."
But Peter Robinson has said: "How anybody who is looking for shared education can be seen to be sectarian is beyond me and beyond everyone else."
The Court of Appeal has rejected a move by Edwin Poots to stop Gay couples in the North adopting children. Edwin Poots had challenged an earlier High Court decision, which ruled the current adoption ban was unlawful. The Court of Appeal ruling has been welcomed by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and Gay rights groups.
DUP MLA for Mid-Ulster Ian McCrea said "Having considered this statement from Basil, I think that he should concentrate on getting his own house in order instead of trying to make inroads in constituencies that are already stretched thin with unionist representation,” Mr McCrea said.
“Anyone I have spoken to regarding this new party have just laughed, but also expressed that they have no appetite for another split in the Mid Ulster vote and they especially don’t want a party that tweets in Irish for the sole purpose of vote winning.
Mr McCrea continued: “NI21 are positioning themselves to be a party that is different from the rest, but as far as I can see they are nothing but chameleons that change their message and morals to suit whatever area they are trying to win votes in.”
The DUP and their attitude to homosexuality I'm talking about. They say those living in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones something that seems to have passed the DUP by. Today Sinn Fein have a motion up in Stormont calling for Same Sex Marriage to be made legal here. The DUP are going to try and block it by raising a motion of concern according to their Chief Whip Peter Weir. Paul Berry was a rising young star in the party until he was caught out getting a sports massage from a young gay man by the Sunday World newspaper. It cost Mr Berry his place in the party. Clifford Smyth who was once a DUP politician now a Orange Order historian according to the BBC he was photographed dressed up as a woman also in the Sunday World newspaper. And we all know how the media went to town when Iris Robinson was caught having a sexual relationship with a 19 year old businessman after a vicious attack on the Gay community. All I can say is I hope nobody currently in the DUP is living a double life especially if they have a family. For as sure as night follows day the newspaper headline DUP politician in Gay Sex Scandal can't be to far in there future. Super-Injunction or no Super-Injunction.
