A BBC programme lasting about an hour with Eamonn Mallie and The Rev and the Rt Hon. the Lord Bannside in an interview about some important issues in Northern Ireland in the past years.
(Below are excerpts taken from WikiPedia website.)
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Lord Bannside.
In 1951, a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland was forbidden by denominational authorities to hold a meeting in their own church hall at which Paisley was to be the speaker. In response, the leaders of that congregation left the PCI and began a new denomination, the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. Paisley soon became the moderator of this denomination and was re-elected every year, except one, for 57 years.
He has preached against homosexuality and supports laws criminalising its practice. Intertwining his religious and political views, "Save Ulster from Sodomy" was a campaign launched by Paisley in 1977, in opposition to the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform (Northern Ireland), established in 1974. Paisley's campaign sought to prevent the extension to Northern Ireland of the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which had decriminalised homosexual acts between males over 21 years of age in England and Wales. The campaign failed when legislation was passed in 1982 as a result of the previous year's ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Dudgeon v United Kingdom.
Paisley promotes a form of Biblical literalism and Anti-Catholicism, which he describes as "Bible Protestantism". The website of Paisley's public relations arm, the European Institute of Protestant Studies, describes the institute's purpose as to "expound the Bible, expose the Papacy, and to promote, defend and maintain Bible Protestantism in Europe and further afield."Paisley's website describes a number of doctrinal areas in which he believes that the "Roman church" (which he termed Popery) has deviated from the Bible and thus from true Christianity.
In the 1960s, Paisley developed a relationship with the fundamentalist Bob Jones University located in Greenville, South Carolina. In 1966, he received an honorary doctorate of divinity from the institution and subsequently served on its board of trustees. This relationship later led to the establishment of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America in 1977.
In 1988, when Pope John Paul II delivered a speech to the European Parliament, Paisley shouted "I denounce you as the Antichrist!" and held up a red poster reading "Pope John Paul II ANTICHRIST" in black letters. John Paul continued with his address after Paisley was ejected from the hemicycle by fellow MEPs. Some reports claimed that other MEPs, including Otto von Habsburg, assisted in expelling him from the chamber,and that Paisley was booed and struck by other MEPs, who also hurled objects at him, leading to his hospitalisation.
Paisley continued to denounce the Catholic Church and the Pope after the incident. In a television interview for The Unquiet Man, a 2001 documentary on Paisley's life, he expressed his pride at being "the only person to have the courage to denounce the Pope".[citation needed] After the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005, Paisley expressed sympathy for Catholics stating "We can understand how Roman Catholics feel at the death of the Pope and we would want in no way to interfere with their expression of sorrow and grief at this time."This was in contrast to Paisley's reaction to the death of Pope John XXIII in June 1963, when Paisley organised protests against the lowering of flags in public buildings after the death of the Pope.
He has claimed in an article that the seat no. 666 in the European Parliament is reserved for the Antichrist. Seat no. 666 is, in actual fact, occupied; at present, following the 2009 European parliamentary election, it is the seat of Conservative Polish MEP Elżbieta Łukacijewska.
He and his organisation have publicly spoken out against what he views to be blasphemy in popular culture, including criticism of the stage productions Jesus Christ Superstar and Jerry Springer: The Opera, as well as being strongly anti abortion.
Although at political odds with the Republic of Ireland, he has some religious followers in two counties (County Donegal and County Monaghan). It was specifically in his religious capacity that he first agreed to meet the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.[citation needed] Paisley revised this stance in September 2004, when he agreed to meet Ahern in his political capacity as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party.[citation needed] Known for a sense of humour, at an early meeting with Ahern at the Irish embassy in London, Paisley requested breakfast and asked for boiled eggs; when Ahern asked him why he had wanted boiled eggs, Paisley quipped "it would be hard for you to poison them".
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