'It shouldn’t have taken until 2024 to have an openly gay Lord Mayor'

Belfast’s Lord Mayor, Micky Murray has said he is "very proud” to be the city’s “very first openly LGBT mayor” in an exclusive interview with Hot Press . In his first major interview since becoming the Lord Mayor of Belfast, published in the latest issue of Hot Press, Cllr Micky Murray of the Alliance Party discussed the topic of occasional homophobic slurs still coming from a small number of elected representatives in Northern Ireland. “I think what upsets me most is the inability for elected reps to understand the consequences of what they say.

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” He said, “A lot of right wing politicians talk about trans people as if they are some creature rather than an everyday person or as if they are some kind of anomaly. That’s very personal.” On Ian Paisley Jr.

who once told Hot Press magazine he was repulsed by homosexuality, Lord Mayor Micky Murray said it’s a “lack of understanding”. “You know, potentially members of his family,” he said. “Members of the community he was elected to represent and some members of his party identify as LGBTQ.

So it’s a lack of understanding and a lack of wanting to understand as well.” In the Hot Press interview, the Lord Mayor also talks about receiving death threats and slams the small percentage of Northern Ireland politicians who still make derogatory remarks about the LGBTQ+ community. “I’ve had a lot of crap.

People have said things on social media where, if taken seriously, could be considered a death threat. But I don't think any of them have had any actual level of [genuine] threat behind them. Nothing has come through official channels.

” In a candid six-page interview, Lord Mayor Micky Murray also talks about drugs, putting forward the argument to legalise marijuana “at the very least for medicinal purposes”, praises the Portuguese Model, and explains why he feels injection centres should be opened in Belfast . “I don’t think there’s a huge issue with marijuana ,” he shared. “It needs to be legalised, at the very least for medicinal purposes.

The way we treat drugs – and especially addiction – is really behind the times.” He added: “We need to look at things like safer injection spaces or overdose prevention facilities, whatever term you want to use, that have been working successfully all over the world since the 70s, 80s, 90s. And it’s 2025, and we’re still having the conversation about, can we open one in Belfast?” Also in this Hot Press six-page feature, Lord Mayor Micky Murray discusses the future of Belfast, reflects on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, explains why he never wants to be First Minister and reveals why he gave up booze for a year.

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