Ken Maginnis, Baron Maginnis of Drumglass

Kenneth Wiggins Maginnis, Baron Maginnis of Drumglass (born January 21, 1938 ) is a Northern Irish politician, former member of the Ulster Unionist Party , who is a member of the House of Lords . He was a Member of the House of Commons from 1983 to 2001 .

biography

Maginnis went to the Royal School Dungannon and Stranmillis College in Belfast . He worked as a teacher for several years and joined the British Army's Ulster Defense Regiment in 1971 . In 1981 he left the army with the rank of major . He became Spokesman for Homeland Security and Defense for the Ulster Unionists and was elected to the Dungannon District Regional Assembly that same year, where he sat for 12 years before losing his seat in 1993.

Member of Parliament

In 1982 he was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly . In the British general election in 1983 , he won a seat in the House of Commons . Two years later he and all his Unionist colleagues resigned in protest against the Anglo-Irish Agreement. He continued his protest by refusing to pay his vehicle tax, which earned him a seven-day prison sentence in 1987.

He was a strong supporter of the Good Friday Agreement . He lost his seat in the House of Commons in the British general election in 2001 and was raised to life peer in the same year as Baron Maginnis of Drumglass , of Carnteel in the County of Tyrone, and thereby became a member of the House of Lords . In the House of Lords he sat for the Ulster Unionist Party .

Councilor

In 2001 he was again councilor in the Borough Council of Dungannon and South Tyrone . In the 2005 election he lost this seat again.

Political opinions

Maginnis belongs to the social liberal wing of the UUP together with Lady Hermon . He is one of only three members of Parliament of the Ulster Unionist Party who has never been a member of the Orange Order . But he belonged to the Apprentice Boys of Derry .

Ken Maginnis sparked heated controversy when he equated homosexuality with bestiality in a BBC interview in June 2012 . Lord Maginnis said he was against gay marriage because it was "unnatural" and that in his opinion the community should not introduce something that was unnatural. The party leader Mike Nesbitt stressed that this was a private opinion and not the position of the party. Also GLBT groups criticized him vehemently.

In June, the UUP Whip was removed from office by party leader Mike Nesbitt for his homophobic statements. Maginnis resigned from the party on August 28, 2012.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dudley Edwards R: The Faithful Tribe. London 1999, p. 3
2. ↑ "Party distances itself from Maginnis gay marriage remarks" BBC News June 13, 2012. Retrieved June 14, 2012
3. ↑ Maginnis quits UUP, tells Nesbitt to resign , The Newsletter, August 28, 2012