Equal Marriage marching on except in Northern Ireland

Cross posted on LGBT+ Lib Dems Northern Ireland

Liberal Democrats at Edinburgh's Equal Marriage March
Picture copyright Liberal Youth Scotland

On Valentine's Day my Lib Dem colleagues in Scotland joined others for a march to Holyrood in support of equal marriage. As you may be aware there has been a consultation process there into the subject and the Government are now considering those submissions. There will also be a consultation by Westminster covering England and Wales.

However, the week before in the Northern Ireland Assembly the subject of the Sexual Orientation Strategy once again emerged from the long grass it has spent most of a decade in to feature at the top of First Minister's Questions. With the Junior Minister saying that OFMDFM do intend to publish this strategy and the revised Cohesion Sharing and Integration programme this year it fell on my Green Party MLA Steven Agnew to ask about one specific:

Mr Agnew: Will there be any mention of gay marriage (Editor's note: I will be sending a note off to my MLA to correct his language on this) in the sexual orientation strategy? Has any progress been made on providing full equal rights to gay couples?

Mr Bell (Junior Minister, Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister): Questions on those matters are the subject of much discussion and have been the subject of much discussion in the media over recent weeks. The issue is not under active consideration.

Now just what did the Junior Minister mean by that?

Is it simply that there is no active consideration of extending equal marriage legislation to Northern Ireland, even if the rest of the UK does. Seeing as we still lag behind on adoption for gay parents and blood donation, this would not be out of character for the Norther Ireland Assembly.

However, more problematic is what if the rest of the UK do accept equal marriage, what consideration then is there to recognise those couples so married should they choose to reside in Northern Ireland? Will their marriages valid and recognised in the majority of the UK not be recognised in Northern Ireland. If they are not civil partnered but married be offered protections under the law of a region that is only recognising marriage as between people of opposite gender and civil partnerships as between those of the same gender.

There could be knock on effects if Northern Ireland doesn't recognise equal marriages from the rest of the UK or indeed the world within its Sexual Orientation Strategy. There will be concerns as far as benefits go, health provision, wording and filling in of forms in all manner of ways.

The fact that there is no active consideration of the complications that carrying on a different approach to the rest of the UK again means that Northern Ireland will be reactionary in its response to this issue and is failing to be proactive in thinking there will be consequences. Not everyone born in Northern Ireland stays here, a lot of us do go elsewhere to study/work. Many of us fall in love with people from other parts of the UK, some of us may even bring that partner to live with us here in Northern Ireland.

So if an LGBT couple fall into that last category having been married elsewhere what position does that leave them in under Northern Irish legislation?

MP's long-held opinion shockingly shocks the Catholic Church at fringe event #equalmarriage

There has been uproar from the Catholic Church in Scotland about comments made by Pete Wishart MP
at a fringe event at SNP conference yesterday. Mr Wishart said:

"What I believe will happen is that our government, over the course of the next few years, after this consultation, will bring forward legislation which will ensure we will have equal marriage in this country. I'm proud of that, I'm proud that this is the party that will be leading us forward, and I look forward to that new Scotland that we're trying to build."

Seeing as the Scotsman say it was hosted by Alyn Smith MEP (along with the Scottish Youth Parliament and LGBT Youth Scotland, I notice) I did what any tweeting fiend would do and check his Tweeter feed. Look what I found:

Now there you have it, there was a discussion. It was a fringe event looking at one of the political topics of the day, in this case equal marriage. Apparently it went around the houses.

Now what the Catholic Church of Scotland may not have got is that fringe meetings at party conferences are meetings where issues are discussed. No conclusions are necessarily drawn, no policy is formed, but members will be made to think and will make the political representatives present think. What is said in a fringe meeting by a speaker is not Ex Cathedra. Indeed I have found out from people who were there that the debate from the floor did cover both sides of the debate, though the overall majority were in support of the premise of equal marriage being the outcome from the consultation.


But look again at the start of Wishart's comments it is "what I believe will happen", it is not what will happen, but what he believes will happen. Now Pete Wishart is one of those MPs within the SNP who for a long time has been pro equal marriage. It is hardly surprising that he should want to see a progressive way forward being the outcome.

The shouting and gnashing of teeth is over the church fearing that they will be forced to do anything. Look at John Mason's amendment which actually wasn't an amendment as there was no obligation for any faith group to carry out same-sex marriage anyway, something backed up by John Swinney.

"There will be no compulsion here, there will be no obligation. The protection is there so that no individual within the religious community will be obliged to do this.

"I think we're right to take this course of action, we're right to make it possible for religious practitioners to conduct same-sex marriages if they wish to do so. But clearly there must be no compulsion involved in any of that."

What most people want is the possibility of religious groups coming to their own conclusions within their own governance structure. Where there are same sex couples or gay individual within that faith grouping, they may ask their leaders to look at the issue, if that is they want to get married within that faith. The laws of the churches are of course up for them and cannot be dictated to, but there are faith groups that want an enabling to carry out same-sex as well as mixed sex marriage and have already said they wish to do so.