It's the Gay Pride Festival this week. But you could be forgiven for not knowing it. Shortly after a gay man got the crap kicked out of him for being gay in Newtownabbey, County Antrim last week, Northern Ireland's first lady, MP Iris Robinson offered her unique DUP brand of sympathy by going on the radio and calling homosexuality an 'abomination'. Other people might go round the hospital with a box of Maltesers and a copy of Heat, but Robinson instead opted to air her ridiculous views, offering to put gay people in touch with a lovely born again Christian psychiatrist she knew who could make them all straight again, like frogs into princes in some happy anti-homo Disney special.

Robinson, who along with being married to First Minister Peter Robinson is also Chair of the Stormont Health Committee, may believe that there is a 'cure' for homosexuality, but perhaps her energy would be better spent closer to home researching a cure for bigotry. It is strange how someone called Iris could be so blind, but she said that she upheld her right to express her Christian views, and as homophobia was part of their brief then nothing could stop her from doing so.

Her remarks were met with anger in some quarters, but mostly bemusement. Sometimes people are so far gone, that there's really nothing to do but despair at their actions, which are just on such a completely different and unacceptable level of normal behaviour in our society. Which, when I think about it, is probably how our Iris feels about the gays.

Although a lot of people reacted to Iris's rant with bemusement and rolling eyes, it's important to remember that such opinions hurt, and do have real life consequences. When the North's political leaders feel it's okay to completely condemn the existence of a section of society, when Robinson feels it's okay to say those people make her feel "sick" and "nauseous," then it makes it a little more excusable to beat up some unfortunate guy who is walking home from a night out, just because he makes you feel sick and nauseous too.

And while Iris didn't ask anyone to go out and beat up gay people, it only takes a little jump in thought from some drunken idiot to put her words into action.

Northern Ireland has a particularly high rate of homophobic attacks (along with a worrying rise in racist attacks). Perhaps because hate and violence were part of the social fabric of the North for so long, they have become hard to shake in other contexts. Maybe Robinson would be better suited to addressing that problem then doling out anti-gay prescriptions to her constituents.

I often wonder which hurts more, completely disconnected homophobia that is just beyond reproach, or the casual stuff. One of the top pop music artists in the US at the moment is a 23-year-old called Katy Perry. Last year, she released a song slagging off her ex-boyfriend called 'Ur So Gay'. The chorus is "You're so gay and you don't even like boys." Perhaps the song would have been smarter (and funnier) if Perry's fictional ex-boyfriend actually did turn out to be gay, but no, instead, Perry chose 'gay' as an insult, making clear to the listener that her ex wasn't 'homosexual', he was just, you know, gay, lame, a loser, that kind of thing. And so the playground insult is solidified in pop culture once more. Ironically, Perry's next song (currently tipping the number one spot across the Atlantic) is called 'I Kissed A Girl', with a chorus beginning "I kissed a girl and I liked it." Maybe between the two songs Perry changed her mind on gayness. Or maybe she's just stupid and uses the word 'gay' as an insult and has realised that exhibitionist faux-lesbianism for male gratification sells CDs.

While I never thought I'd be putting the North's first lady and a pop starlet in the same category, there they both sit – one outraged and hysterical, the other cynical and immature – and both do damage. Even while rainbow flags fly along the Liffey in Dublin this week, and the capital hosts the largest amateur 15s rugby tournament in the world – the Gay Rugby World Cup – you have the ridiculous Mayo Echo fabricating a story on gay cruising beside a Castlebar lake, and labelling all gay people 'perverts'. Police and locals have since rubbished the story, of course, but the message stands. It seems that for every positive move in rights and tolerance for gay people, there's another little dig by people too juvenile, ignorant and intolerant to realise that their views are not acceptable. And yet even much more crucial for the future of equal rights: for every wildly successful Pride Festival – which no doubt, this year's will be, joining people of all classes, ages, races, and their families together – there's that conspicuously missing, sorry 'delayed', legislation on civil partnership. I wonder where that has got to…

umullally@tribune.ie