The party knows it can no longer openly peddle anti-gay, anti-Catholic bile in this new era of political responsibility, writes Fionnula O'Connor
THE NORTH's politics are odd, as the world knows. Having forged a way out of bloodshed, which followed one-party rule, which drew on a couple of centuries of communal enmity born of settlement and resentment, how could they be other than odd?
Today's political dispensation is designed to give equal voice to conflicting views and simultaneously guard against majority misbehaviour. How would it not be a curious system? Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness as amiable double-act was surprising, yes, and also the perfect, crowning oddity.
There was another surprise lurking up ahead. Sinn Féin's repositioning in the Republic and loss of face for Gerry Adams, wise leader, will continue to intrigue - few could have expected the evolution of the DUP to match the phenomenon of politics displacing paramilitarism. But the party in the Paisley shadow, despite lacking the drama of ceasefires and decommissioning, has already shown soap-opera potential.
Hindsight makes perfect, psychological sense of it. Even without a showboater like the now-replaced leader, the group dynamics promised action. Biblical undergrowth and holier-than-thou sermonising invite wacky outbursts and erratic behaviour sooner or later.
Given that the founder-leader/father-figure took his people on an accelerated journey into political arrangements the like of which he had reviled only months previously, with no attempt to console the disconcerted, a fair amount of instability was bound to exist beneath the surface. It became evident in land-slips, chunks of reverence and respect breaking off in quick succession to betray the fact that the ground beneath was no longer solid.
The Free Presbyterian Church forced its founder to retire as moderator, and there was that substantial byelection vote last February for the pressure group convened by ex-DUP MEP Jim Allister. Then the drip-feed of revelation about cosy dealings between the talkative and immodest Ian Paisley jnr and a north Antrim businessman cost the son his prominence, and the father's days were numbered.
Having been lord of all he surveyed, scourge of dissent and, at least notionally, pater familias to his much younger followers, the leader lost his grip with dizzying suddenness at the end. The consensus was that "junior" did for him. Ambitious ex-followers had the succession ready to roll. Peter Robinson became party leader and First Minister with half a year to spare before his 60th birthday in December. He promised a new style, a collective leadership. But there was a cloud in the sky, no bigger than a woman's hand.
When a small storm broke days after his installation around the head of his wife Iris, because she aired her belief that homosexuals could be "turned around" by psychiatry and "redeemed by the blood of Christ," it did not come out of the blue.
Mrs Robinson had spoken six weeks ago about her husband's perfection, her unsatisfied political ambition, passion for interior decor and belief that Princess Diana was murdered, among other things, in a Sunday Tribune interview. But her thoughts on the "abomination" and psychiatric treatment of homosexuality emerged in two local broadcasts, in a week when attackers badly injured a young gay man in Newtownabbey.
The reaction said a fair bit about the North, a lot about Mrs Robinson, and a little about the party her husband has waited for so long to lead. Mrs Robinson said anger at her views amounted to a "witch-hunt" against forthright Christians. At his first Assembly question-time as First Minister her husband faced calls for her removal as chair of the health committee.
He said he would be at the forefront in defending gay people or anyone else against discrimination, as would his wife. Given that Mr Robinson first attracted attention outside Northern Ireland by organising the Rev Ian Paisley's "Save Ulster from Sodomy" campaign, it could be said that this marked a sizeable advance.
Most of the DUP's front rank know they can no longer openly voice the anti-gay, anti-Catholic bile that was once staple fare. Mrs Robinson's reliance on "Bible teachings" may play well to one section of the gallery, like jibes at political correctness from new Minister of the Environment Sammy Wilson. But when the junior Paisley divulged last spring that gay and lesbian people "repulsed" him, his father disavowed the remark at an assembly question time. As he was bound to do, and as Mr Robinson is now bound, since the office of First and Deputy First Ministers has special responsibility for promoting equality.
The cheerful protest by a sizeable bunch of trade unionists outside Stormont about the Iris "abomination" pointed up the gulf between much of life in today's Northern Ireland, and the prejudices some still treasure. A Presbyterian Church spokesman said no Christian should speak as Mrs Robinson did. Homophobia may still be a danger on the streets and a torture to the vulnerable, but it has lost its social sanction. Iris Robinson had better learn discretion, or risk becoming her husband's junior.