A thread expanding a little on my political views, clearing up some fallacies about them & a smidge of nuance for anyone who gives a toss.

A lot of pro union folk will say Pastor J you only criticise DUP & UUP & arent even handed in criticising other parties. Firstly I dont view all the parties the same.

I freely admit I despise the DUP, not because they are pro union but because they are sectarian, bigoted, homophobic, morally corrupt hypocrits who hide behind a religion they bastardise & dont practice & use PUL to secure incomes for themselves.

UUP I just see as lost & rather pathetic. They had an opportunity to provide a more moderate choice for unionists but instead just copied DUP on most issues.

Some pro union critics assume because I am pro unification & despise DUP I am therefore some sort of provo or pro SF. Most famously of course the Deputy Editor of NL but also Osama Bin Bryson.

Reality is I dont despise SF as much as DUP & not just because we support unification. I dont find SF as homophobic or sectarian as DUP for example. But that doesnt mean I support SF or agree with all their policies or see them as free from criticism.

We agree on unification (tho I find some of the SF literature on it incomplete politically & economically). We agree on things like equal rights for everyone. Where i disagree is on things like economic policy: Im a centrist economically and dont agree with extremes left or right

2nd Im a pacifist. I dont agree with the conflict. Some of you will say easy for you to say & disagree but I was impacted by it too. Maybe not to the extent of some but impacted nonetheless. I believe conflict held society back whatever the perceived justification at the time.

I can & do forgive for past wrongs which were of their time but Id be lying if I said I was comfortable with commemorating an internacine conflict as we had to the point I cud support any party commemorating it.

Thats not to say people arent entitled to remember the dead on all sides but the commemoration doesnt sit easy with me. Doesnt matter to me if state or paramilitary.

Plenty of you will disagree with me as is your right but thought Id provide some nuance to counter the fallacies & simplistic labelling & black & white thinking by some.

Even within this thread there are many subleties, nuances & exceptions which are hard to convey in a thread. Such is life which is many shades of grey imo. But that doesnt sit easily with those of binary worldviews....