A DUP politician said he would "rather walk up the Falls Road in a Rangers shirt" than take part in a Belfast Pride event.

The staunch Ulster unionists were the only Northern Ireland political party not to take part in the debate on equal marriage on Monday evening.

According to the Press Assocatiation, Arlene Foster's party were invited but declined.

The DUP, who agreed a billion pound trade off to prop up Theresa May’s minority government in the Commons, have an old-fashioned approach to LGBT rights.

MP Ian Paisley Jr - who is currently suspended - has previously called homosexuality “immoral, offensive and obnoxious” and said he was “repulsed” by gays and lesbians.

The party once championed a campaign called “Save Ulster from Sodomy”.

DUP politician Trevor Clarke last year said he thought only gay people could contract AIDS or HIV, but has since admitted he "did not understand the stigma attached to it" and has campaigned for greater awareness and prevention.

Jim Wells, the MLA who told organisers he would "rather walk up the Falls Road in a Rangers shirt" previously told a hustings in 2015: “The gay lobby is insatiable, they don’t know when enough is enough.”

He also said children who were raised in a homosexual relationship were more likely to be abused or neglected. He later apologised for the comments.

Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson raised the DUP’s record on gay rights with May when the confidence and supply agreement was being discussed.

Davidson told the BBC: "I was fairly straightforward with her and I told her that there were a number of things that count to me more than party.

"One of them is country, one of the others is LGBTI rights."

The Scottish Tory leader said she had asked for, and received, a "categoric assurance" from May that any arrangement between the Conservatives and the DUP would see "absolutely no rescission of LGBTI rights in the rest of the UK".

At the event on Monday, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald called for the British Government to intervene and introduce same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland if the Stormont deadlock cannot be broken.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK or Ireland which has not introduced equal marriage.

Polls suggest a public majority back the measure.

McDonald told the Pride Talkback event: "If it is the case that Westminster has to intervene then so be it."

She added: "That won't be a badge of success - that will be a mark of failure."

McDonald added: "In the absence of the political institutions, it is a matter for both British and Irish governments to ensure that the rights of the LGBT-plus community in the North are fully vindicated.

"The British Irish Intergovernmental conference met last week, it will meet again in the autumn and it must resolve the outstanding rights issues including the right to marriage equality."

The Ulster Unionists, SDLP, Green Party, Alliance and Progressive Unionists were represented at Monday night's Pride debate at the Mac theatre.