On December 28th, 2009, MP Iris Robinson said that problems with depression had caused her to be unable to meet her responsibilities as MP.

Today it emerged that she had been having an affair and the guilt lead her to try to kill herself around midnight on March 1, 2008. She says the affair had no emotional meaning to her.

The Robinsons have been ardently anti-gay and Iris’ remarks in particular have made the news on a number of occasions for their brutality and for her belief that homosexuality can be cured.

On UTV News tonight, her husband, Northern Ireland’s First Minister Peter Robinson — looking very deflated and overwhelmed as he said that every morning he prays for the strength to deal with the situation. He said (admirably, in my view) that he has weighed her indiscretion against a forty year marriage and the pressures he feels she has dealt with throughout the years as a parent and has a supportive partner during his political career.

He asks that others find within themselves the ability to forgive her with mercy and compassion.

I wonder what his reaction would have been had her affair been with a woman?

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