Irish anti-gay MP stands down
Iris Robinson, the Northern Ireland MP who called gays an "abomination", has announced she is standing down from politics due to depression.
The UK’s Pink News reported that Robinson, the Democratic Unionist MP for Strangford and wife of Northern Ireland's first minister, Peter Robinson, released a statement yesterday saying she could no longer meet the demands of her job.
The 60-year-old was labelled a bigot for a series of outbursts last year in which she made offensive comments about homosexuality.
In 2008, she told the Belfast Telegraph that homosexuality was "comparable" to paedophilia. She also told a radio show that homosexuality was a mental illness and could be "cured". Robinson escaped a police prosecution for the comments.
In the statement, she said: "Over the years, I have undergone a long series of operations and, though I have never talked about it publicly, I have also battled against serious bouts of depression.
"Only those who have faced similar challenges in life will know the ordeal faced by those who are profoundly depressed, and the distress caused to those around them as they grapple with personality-changing illness. One in four of the population struggle with mental illnesses at one level or another, yet few talk about it openly.”
Photo c. BBC News
