A politician in Northern Ireland has suggested that people get addicted to homosexuality like they do to cigarettes.

Democratic Unionist Party councillor and Deputy Mayor of Derry and Strabane Thomas Kerrigan made the comments this week – after his party vetoed same-sex marriage in the Northern Irish Assembly.

According to the Strabane Chronicle, Kerrigan praised his party for overriding the legislative majority on the issue, claiming: “Woman is made for man and man is made for woman. I would stand on this scripturally and the party has to be honoured for the stand it has taken.

“I believe prayer would change things because really, if you go back to the times of Sodom and Gomorrah, things were on the same basis and the Lord punished them.

“People say you were born with this but I don’t believe that. You get into this and the same as with drink or smoking, you get hooked on it after the first time or second time.

“So I would have to commend my party for standing up.”

An opinion poll recently suggested that two-thirds of people in Northern Ireland support same-sex marriage.

The Derry Journal also report Kerrigan’s comments, claiming he suggested gay people can be cured.

The newspaper reports he said: “I have seen people come through fairly severe times and they were prayed for and they were turned in a different direction.

“People really think ‘that’s my way of life’ and that is entirely up to them, but I think there is a better way and a more happier way.

“I will go the second mile to help someone see the folly of their ways and it grieves me to see some families with someone gone astray and gone astray very badly against their own parents.”

It was recently confirmed that the DUP’s former Health Minister, Jim Wells, would not face charges for claiming that gay parents are more likely to abuse children.



Jim Wells

Mr Wells has previously described Pride events as “repugnant”.