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DESPITE most people of course not being bigots
Seriously, you keep saying this - which I guess may be true in circles in which you mix, leading to a little confirmation bias. Try scratching the surface a little, and examining the communities in NI you're less familiar with - potentially the older, less urban, less educated sections of the population?
What proportion of NI's MPs vote consistently for bigoted/against liberal policies? How many of them stand proudly on bigoted manifestos? People vote with their own prejudices, and NI has plenty more than most places.
In NI, you'll rarely meet people who aren't lovely, friendly and welcoming. That doesn't mean they don't have deep-seated discomfort with anything outside of the culture which they have been brought up in (generally conservative, often influenced heavily by religion). You may be happy where you are, but stop kidding yourself that it's better than it is.
kl-
Correct, I live in Belfast and work in areas with high education, so bigotry is rarer. But don't think I'm kidding myself, as in, I'm denying there are problems. I just resist general stereotyping of a black/white form.
It's not just rural/age: In the Republic of Ireland the rural areas are not as bigoted as the public thinks on LGBT marriage/abortion access. If you look at for example abortion access the people voting for parties are LESS strict than their party leaders. Even in the DUP. It's not quite as bad as the politicians vote.
People keep voting based on an identify of ROI/UK where the identity got mixed in with religion (even though there are protestant republicans for example).
I don't see this change and with Sinn Fein/SDLP being happy to prop up the Catholic church it only leads to more aggravation for people that identify as protestant and the bullshitting around a border poll. The good friday agreement with its giving more power to "themmuns" parties has partially caused this.
And so it goes round and round and round. And so NI looks like an absolute arsehole of a place as the bigots we have are 40 years behind the "bigots" voting for them.
There are now changes though with more people voting Alliance
TL:DR yes NI is more bigoted in some things, but it's nowhere as bigoted as the moronic politicians ppl keep voting for cos flegs.
JWestland
Faith schools lead to segregation and therefore are a problem, see Northern Ireland. Selection is based on the religion parents give their kids (it's not that you can choose) leading to kids being segregated from a very young ago.
http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2016/04/inclusive-schooling-is-part-of-the-answer-to-the-social-segregation-of-muslims
Secular education on religion including everyone's festivals (sugar fest, lent, easter, christmas etc.) yes please.
Living in Northern Ireland I see the toxic influence of religion. DESPITE most people of course not being bigots it skews public policy and leads to bad sex-ed, shaming of LGBT people and women and a lot of other issues.
We have creationism in schools. What rot! And those things unfortunately come from religion.
Despite any religion having moderate streams (the Islamic world used to be a world leader in science hundreds of years ago until a regressive doctrine took over, Protestantism also fosters some origins of scientific thought) the nasty dumb ones take over. And again the Tories let it happen with their "education" minister.
However, we are all entitled to our beliefs and I see a lot of stereotyping which helps absolutely nobody. I probably have more in common though with a left liberal secular muslim than a right wing gun toting atheist... :)