Court Decision: Lee v Ashers Baking Co Ltd

29/05/2015 By Dave McFarlane 1 Comment

The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland welcomes the judgement given in Belfast in the case of Lee v Gareth Lee Ashers Baking Co Ltd. This case raised issues of public importance regarding the extent to which suppliers of goods and services can refuse service on grounds of sexual orientation, religious belief and political opinion.
The Court’s decision confirms the legal responsibilities on all service providers not to discriminate against their customers on these grounds.

See the Commission’s response to the decision

Read the full judgement of the Court (pdf, 516kb)

The Commission’s Advisory Services Team can provide advice to employers and service providers. For further information Tel: 028 90500600 or email edenquiries@equalityni.org

Belfast Book Festival 2015

29/05/2015 By Dave McFarlane Leave a Comment

Belfast Has A Book Festival!

Festival Director, Keith Acheson said: “Every year the Belfast Book Festival provides an opportunity for authors, poets and performers, to showcase their work. Yet again we reveal another packed programme of events which we hope will appeal to everyone – no matter what age or level of interest in literature.

Kate Newman reading from poetry anthology ‘Grim’

“Whilst we are delighted to welcome returning supporters we are keen to reach out to those who have never participated in our festival before and encourage them to join us in trying something new. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our key funders the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Belfast City Council for their continued support as well as all of our many festival sponsors and partners.”
Kate Newmann, read from her wonderfully atmospheric collection of poetry , Grim.

Conor Maguire performing from his one man show of Moby Dick

Conor Maguire, also performed an extract from his one man representation of ‘Moby Dick’, which was atmospheric and riveting. Herman Melville’s epic prose From 1851 still has much to tell us about the nature of man and is brought to the stage by Conor Maguire, who has performed Oscar Wilde in ‘De Profundis’ and Brendan Behan in ‘The Confirmation Suit’ for the Belfast Book Festival.

The festival is of course about books, and central to its ethos is that of bringing books to schools through it Writers in Schools workshops in creative writing, from short stories to poetry and even the odd Haiku! – all supported by featured artists.

Thomas Hitzlsperger in his Everton days. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA

But, for the LGBT community we have a treat, NIGRA has been working with Keith Acheson to introduce an LGBT element into the festival, and indeed a first, in that Thomas Hitzlsperbger, a former German footballer who played the early part of his career with Aston Villa, before returning to Germany to play for Stuttgart. Following a series of injuries, he retired from football in 2013, and he announced that he was gay.
We welcome this inclusion, and hope that the community will make every effort to support the night by coming along. I for one am looking forward to hearing his conversation with Denise Watson.

…He had thought about coming out while still playing for Wolfsburg in 2011-12 but then listened to people who warned him of the negative consequences. “They all said ‘don’t do it, a big wave will crash on you’,” he says…
I urge everyone to come along to as many events as you can, there is something for everyone, of every age, gender, colour or creed. I have already picked my events.

Belfast Book Festival 2015

Equality law will change to protect gay teachers, says Ó Ríordáin

29/05/2015 By Dave McFarlane Leave a Comment

The Irish Times – May 28th, 2015 – Ruadhán Mac Cormaic

Schools and hospitals will not be able to discriminate over sexuality, Minister says

Luke Field from Cork and Minister of State for Equality Aodhán Ó Ríordáin at the count centre in Dublin for the same-sex marriage referendum. Photograph: Cyril Byrne.

A planned change to equality law will “raise the bar” so high that schools and hospitals will not be allowed to discriminate against staff or job applicants because they are gay, Minister of State for Equality Aodhán Ó Ríordáin has said.

The Government is working on an amendment to the Employment Equality Act, which allows religious-run schools and hospitals to discriminate in order to maintain their ethos. Advocacy groups and unions say the law has a chilling effect on gay and lesbian teachers, who feel their sexuality could hinder employment or promotion prospects.

Mr Ó Ríordáin said he believed an attempt to repeal section 37.1 of the Act, which gives religious-run workplaces an exemption to discrimination law if an individual undermines their ethos, could be unconstitutional.

Instead, the Government would amend the law so as to “raise the bar of the ‘undermining’ to be so high as to be irrelevant what somebody’s personal life would be”.

Promotion prospects

“Effectively you have a situation where an awful lot of teachers in primary and secondary schools would have voted Yes [in the marriage referendum] on Friday, would have gone out and celebrated over the weekend, possibly went back into their staff rooms on Monday morning and didn’t tell anybody what they were up to because they felt it would impact on their promotion prospects in the school,” Mr Ó Ríordáin said.

He believed this was a workers’ rights issue that affected not only the LGBT community but people who were remarried or cohabiting with their partners.

Mr Ó Ríordáin was speaking on The Irish Times Inside Politics podcast, where he clashed with the chair of the Iona Institute’s board of directors, John Murray.

Commitment

Mr Murray said section 37 should not be changed, but if it was, new text should include a commitment to denominational education. He said schools had a “live and let live” attitude to diversity and respect for people’s private lives.

“There are hundreds of teachers around Ireland who are divorced or remarried. There are many teachers who are living together with somebody, who aren’t married at all. That happens in loads and loads of cases,” he said.

“I’m involved in education for the last 30 years and I’m not aware that there’s a major problem about this, in terms of people being sacked or people losing their jobs or people not being able to do their jobs. It simply isn’t true.”

Under current law, educational or medical institutions controlled by religious orders which promote religious values are not considered to be discriminating if they favour an employee or prospective employee “in order to maintain the religious ethos”.

Repeal or amendment of section 37.1 has been discussed since the early 2000s, when the Equality Authority said it should be reviewed. Any amendment must strike a balance between the right to equality and the right to earn a livelihood, on one hand, and the right to the profession and practice of religion.

Mr Ó Ríordáin hopes the law will be amended by the new school year in September.

Why Thousands Of Catholics Voted For Marriage Equality In Ireland

29/05/2015 By Dave McFarlane Leave a Comment

BY JACK JENKINS POSTED ON MAY 27, 2015 AT 8:03 AM

Marriage equality supporters celebrate outside of Dublin castle, Ireland after learning the final result of the nation’s referendum on same-sex marriage over the weekend.

CREDIT: AP

Last week, famously Catholic Ireland voted overwhelmingly to legalize same-sex marriage in a national referendum, making it the first nation in the world to enact marriage equality through a popular vote. Within hours of the results,several journalists and pundits painted it as a victory for secularism and a telltale sign of Ireland’s willingness to abandon the Catholic Church, which staunchly condemns same-sex marriage and whose leaders urged their congregants to vote against LGBT equality. The Church’s longstanding influence on Irish life, they concluded, was ending.
But while the narrative of a dying church is tidy, it fails to account for a religiousand distinctly Catholic movement for LGBT equality quietly triumphing in Ireland and elsewhere. To be sure, recent census results show a markedgrowth in Irish who don’t affiliate with any religious tradition, and a notable drop in the number who attend mass each week. This is largely due to the dark specter of the child sex abuse scandal, which was particularly horrific in Ireland, as well a younger generation fed up with conservative views of homosexuality. But for all this talk of a vanishing Catholic Church, Ireland remains a deeply Catholic nation: although more than 62 percent of Irish who voted in the referendum supported same-sex marriage, a full 83.2 percent of the population still claims to be Catholic.

So how did so many self-identified Catholics vote for something their Church blatantly forbids? There were no
national exit polls for the referendum, but Ursula Halligan, a prominent Irish TV news presenter in Ireland, offered a clue earlier this month in an op-ed for the Irish Times. In it, she detailed her own struggle with sexual identity — explaining how she fell in love with a girl at 17 — before boldly claiming that her support for same-sex marriage was not a rejection of her faith, but a passionate embrace of the person God compels her to be.

“As a person of faith and a Catholic, I believe a Yes vote is the most Christian thing to do,” Halligan wrote. “I believe the glory of God is the human being fully alive and that this includes people who are gay.”
Commentators have rightly placed much of the credit for the vote on high turnout among younger, non-religious Irish people, yet support for equality transcended age and church attendance. As an 83-year-old woman told the Irish Times on her way to mass earlier this month, marriage equality is a challenge for the Church, not her faith.
“I think it’s a stupid carry-on the way the church is going on at the moment, ridiculous,” she said.
But it wasn’t just lay Catholics who lobbied for same-sex marriage in Ireland. Marching alongside them at pro-equality parades were several practicing Catholic clergy, many of whom openly endorsed the right to marry over the past year. Like their parishioners, they framed their position as a natural outgrowth of their faith.
“A lot of people who vote ‘yes’ on Friday will be at church on Sunday,” Rev. Pádraig Standún, a Catholic priest in Western Ireland, told the Washington Post. “They won’t be any less Catholic. In fact they might be even more so, because they’re following the words of Jesus and showing more love.”
Standún and other priests are sometimes dismissed as radical or fringe, but they represent a growing contingent of the Church’s own leadership. At least one priest — Rev. Tony Flannery, who was suspended in 2012 for supporting reforms such as women’s ordination — told BuzzFeed he predicted at least 25 percent of the country’s clergy would got to the polls and quietly vote “yes” for same-sex marriage. Among their number was Rev. Martin Dolan, a priest whocame out to his Dublin, Ireland congregation in January during a sermon, encouraging his flock to support the referendum before declaring “I’m gay myself.”
The congregation’s response? A standing ovation.

Embodied in their applause was the simple belief that one’s Catholic identity is not erased by standing up to the church on same-sex marriage, a position shared by a growing global chorus of their fellow faithful. Catholics in the U.S., home to the world’s fourth-largest Catholic population, are actuallymore supportive of same-sex marriage than any Christian group in the country, and have launchedsustained protests across America against Catholic institutions that fire employees for being LGBT. In Brazil, the world’s largest Catholic nation,65 percent of Catholics endorse the right to marry, which is now legal there after a 2013 federal court ruling. And over in Pope Francis’ home nation of Argentina, where over 70 percent of the population is Catholic, same-sex marriage has been legal since 2010. That move was supported by more than 60 percent of the population at the time — including, of course, millions of Catholics.
These pro-equality Catholics achieved all of this not by renouncing their faith, but by fervently claiming it — just as the Irish did. Church leaders already appear to be at least hearing the message, even as they refuse to abandon old understandings of sexuality. Although no immediate change is on the horizon, Pope Francis’ oft-discussed conciliatory tone toward LGBT people and his high-level conversations about homosexuality offer a peek into a church striving to come to terms with the progressive theology of its laity. And while Rome hasn’t offered an official statement on the Irish vote, a Vatican newspaper called it a “defeat”, a sentiment echoed by Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin on Sunday.
“The church needs to take a reality check,” Martin told the New York Times. “It’s very clear there’s a growing gap between Irish young people and the church, and there’s a growing gap between the culture of Ireland that’s developing and the church.”
Martin, of course, didn’t support the referendum. But his other commentsahead of the vote show a deeper — albeit conflicted — sensitivity to the issue: “Anybody who doesn’t show love towards gay and lesbian people is insulting God. They are not just homophobic if they do that—they are actually Godophobic because God loves every one of those people,” he said.

There are cynical progressive Catholics who will dismiss these efforts to change the Church from below or within. Wounded by decades of culture wars, they understandably see the hierarchy as too stiff, too immobile, too much of a literal old boys’ club. But history proves that the church does listen to the spiritual concerns of those it serves — it just usually takes a lot of effort and a really, really long time. The Protestant Reformation, divisive and bloody as it was, still sparked a flurry of changes within the Church that eventually manifested in theCounter-Reformation, a fraught period (it included the Roman Inquisition) that nonetheless saw the introduction of many internal reforms such as curtailing the much-critiqued selling of indulgences. Centuries later in the 1980s, several Church officials, including then-Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), condemned the emergence of Liberation Theology in Central and South America, railing against several aspects of a Catholic movement that decried corrupt clergy and sought to lift up the poor. Yet just last week, Pope Francis — the first Latin American pontiff — invited the father of liberation theology, Gustavo Gutiérrez, to speak at the Vatican as a guest. Several of Gutiérrez’s contemporaries were officially rejected by the Church, but their shared core assumption — that God is on the side of the poor and oppressed — is clearly alive in Francis’ own popular papacy.
Meanwhile, conservative Catholic pundits have begun blaming Pope Francis for potentially splitting the Church, casting him as a divisive pope whose rhetoric strays from true Catholicism, especially his approach to LGBT people. But the Church was divided on LGBT issues long before Francis ascended to the papacy, and it is a genuine religious movement — not just a secular one — that is pushing for it to change. If the Church does schism (and it almost assuredly won’t), it will be for many more reasons than sexuality, but it likely won’t be a radical left wing abandoning the pious. Instead, it will probably be a minority right-wing that has refused to heed the wisdom of a theology already guiding the daily lives of millions of everyday Catholics.
Which brings us back to Ireland. If the Irish are known for anything, it’s for their rollicking history of fighting to bring oppressive powers low before God. Their various revolutions and struggles with the English crown are a testament to that, when many Catholic Church officials were close allies of revolutionaries, risking their lives to stand up for the oppressed. Last Wednesday a new band Irish Catholics — clergy and laity alike — simply reengaged that old spirit in the form of a vote, but this time with a message for the Church itself: “We are Catholic, and we support marriage equality,” they implicitly proclaimed as they cast their votes, filled Dublin streets with rainbow flags, and flooded gay pubs to raise triumphant pints of Guinness. “What of it?”

__________________________________________________________________

This post has been updated to expand the section detailing the church’s reaction to Liberation theology.

Poll finds 85% of people support marriage equality as demonstrations set to take place in Belfast

29/05/2015 By Dave McFarlane Leave a Comment

The Gay Say : MAY 28, 2015
What’s next for LGBT rights in Northern Ireland?

MARRIAGE EQUALITY DEMONSTRATIONS:

RALLY – SATURDAY 30TH MAY – 2PM ASSEMBLY AT BELFAST CITY HALL.

MARCH AND DEMONSTRATION – SATURDAY 13TH JUNE 2015 – 2.30PM ASSEMBLY AT WRITER’S SQUARE.

As Northern Ireland’s neighbours each began to embrace marriage equality it was becoming obvious that as a nation we would soon be left out in the cold when it comes to LGBT rights.
Now following an historic result in Ireland’s Yes vote in the Marriage Equality Referendum there is a prominent patch of inequality in the UK and Ireland.
Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK which does not allow gay marriage after England, Wales and Scotland introduced marriage equality legislation last year.
The DUP, the biggest party in Northern Ireland has steadfastly refused to follow suit. Motions to legalise same-sex marriage have been rejected four times in the assembly.
The last motion in April fell after 47 MLAs voted in support while 49 voted against. The result, however, was a forgone conclusion as it had already been blocked by a DUP petition of concern.
The issues surrounding the rights of the LGBT community are bubbling to the surface more frequently now.
Recent news and events involving the former Health Minister Jim Wells, Northern Ireland’s blood ban, the Ashers Bakery gay cake row, reports of homophobia during the Westminster election campaign and recent blocks on introducing marriage equality have only served to highlight the difficulties experienced by LGBT people here.
Amnesty International’s Northern Ireland Programme Director Patrick Corrigan has criticised Northern Ireland’s politicians for blocking the equality legislation.
“This historic result [in the Republic of Ireland] will echo around the world – it shows how a once socially-conservative country can transform itself into a beacon of equality,” he said.
“Northern Ireland is now the last bastion of discrimination against gay people in these islands.
“Northern Ireland’s discriminatory laws are a badge of shame – not to be worn by the people of Northern Ireland, a majority of whom support same-sex marriage, but by those politicians who oppose equal treatment for the LGBTI community.
“The Northern Ireland Executive should waste no more time in fulfilling its first duty to its people – to ensure that none are treated as second-class citizens.”
Amnesty, along with The Irish Congress of Trade Unions and The Rainbow Project, will hold a mass rally in support of equal marriage (facebook event page link) rights on June 13.
A statement from John O’Doherty, Director of The Rainbow Project, last week reads:
“Northern Ireland is now the only region in Western Europe where marriage equality is not a reality. This is a shameful injustice which cannot be allowed to continue. 1a1a marriage equality rally 2 13th
‘To highlight this injustice, The Rainbow Project and our partners in Amnesty International and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions have announced a march and rally for marriage equality to be held in Belfast on Saturday 13th June, assembling at Writers’ Square for 2.30pm.
The March for Civil Marriage Equality through central Belfast will culminate in a rally in front of Belfast City Hall.
‘We will continue our fight to ensure that Equality becomes a reality for all the peoples of these islands.’
Some people are calling for a referendum on the issue whilst others are hoping that the outcome of an on-going court case will result in the implementation of marriage equality legislation.
Besides the marriage equality march in Belfast on June 13th there will be another protest at City Hall being organised this Saturday 30th May held at City hall.
The event has been organised by the party People Before Profit and has over 4,000 confirmed attendees on the Facebook event page. 1a1a marriage equality rally 2 13thx1
The event description for the protest on Facebook reads:
“The referendum in the Republic of Ireland has given great hope to the LGBT community around the world. The referendum was not just about equal marriage, as important as that is. It also gives us all hope that we can build a more equal and fair society.
“However, in Northern Ireland we still do not have the right to marry and elected representatives have failed to get a motion passed for same sex marriage 4 times. Shame on our Assembly!
As a young member of the LGBT community myself I am disgusted at this. But I feel now that the result in the South should spur us on here in the North. Equality can’t wait!
“Let’s get out and make our voices heard. Fellow Members of the LGBT community and everyone who believes in equality, I urge you to join us in a rally, Saturday 30th May, at 2pm, City hall!
“I hope to see many people there, it’s urgent that we organise a large movement to fight against this oppression and demand equal marriage status!”
In a post on the Facebook event page, People Before Profit councillor, Gerry Carroll said:
“This could be the start of a big movement. Well done everyone! Let’s make it a big one! And now the great people at the Rainbow Project and others have called for a big rally in June too! Fantastic! Let’s get everyone down next Saturday as a start for a really big movement that will shake the Assembly to its core. And then get everyone down in June!”
The news of the planned demonstrations comes with a surge in support for equal marriage.
A recent survey in the Belfast Telegraph has found 85% of people believe same sex marriage should be allowed in Northern Ireland (13% said No, 2% said they “Don’t care”).
TGS are encouraging as many people as possible to get involved in the events and put further pressure on the Assembly to embrace equality legislation.

Ashers Bakery Owners to Appeal

29/05/2015 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

Editorial: The McArthur family, who having taken a contract decided that they couldn’t fulfil it due to their Christian beliefs, and then who were taken to court by the Equality Commission NI and had judgement made against them, is to appeal the judgement.

This is a perfectly natural move, and it is one that must be expected. The fees are not exorbitant (see Civil Appeals Office Fees from 4 April 2011) but the time for a case to heard can be lengthy, currently some cases are in excess of 9 months.

I do honestly believe that both of the two participants in this case would like to get on with their lives, but unfortunately the case has now got a political angle; in particular with some Northern Irish MLA’s and MP’s taking very right of centre positions against the LGBT community. Allied to which some church groups, in particular the Christian Institute which is funding the McArthur’s case for them.

I will also stress to everyone that the decision to go to the Appeal Courts at this time is controlled by the laws governing when you can submit your Notice to Appeal, and that it has ‘nothing’ to do with the ‘Yes’ vote on marriage equality which has just occurred in the Republic of Ireland.

The two are not linked in any way that I can see.

I am putting links to various news articles here for you to look at and for you to make your own judgement:

Bakery owners Daniel McArthur and his wife Amy arrive at court for the verdict. Press Eye – Belfast – Northern Ireland – 19th May 2015 Picture by Jonathan Porter / Press Eye

Authors praise rise in LGBT-themed kids’ books

28/05/2015 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

The Bay City Reporter – by Chris Huqueriza –

Published 04/02/2015

by Chris Huqueriza

Author Maya Christina Gonzalez. Photo: Jeanine O’Connor

Twenty-five years ago, Leslea Newman published a book about a child and her two moms. A simple story about a little girl and her two mothers dropping her off to school. Titled Heather Has Two Mommies , with illustrations by Laura Cornell, the book received both acclaim and controversy.

Named a Lambda Literary Award finalist in 1990, the book would spark outrage two years later in North Carolina concerning its place in the public library. But most importantly, the book became a milestone in LGBT-themed books and a perspective many children need to see.

A new crop of LGBT-themed kids books has added to choices for young readers. Photo: Cynthia Laird

Last month, a new edition was released to coincide with the milestone anniversary.
“When writing books for young readers, it’s important to remember what it felt like to be a child,” said Newman, 59, who identifies as lesbian and has written over 60 books. “Tap back to your childhood and write to children. There was no book [at the time] to reflect my family.”
Since then, many books have been released with LGBT themes or authored by out writers.
Author Maya Christina Gonzalez wrote and illustrated a children’s book called Call Me Tree/Llamame Arbol. While the book, published last year, focuses on the main character’s relationship to nature, it is known for not using any particular gender pronouns and uses both Spanish and English in its text.
“I started off writing, then with painting. The freaks and geeks need to tell their stories and kids need to hear them and relate to them. The big major publishers won’t publish them,” said Gonzalez, 51, a queer Chicana who lives in San Francisco with her husband and has made multicultural books for the past 20 years. “Without using gender pronouns, it gives my character the opportunity to grow into themselves. There’s no reflection of that in the media.”
Other authors write books using their own identity to shape their work.
James LaCroce, Ph.D., has tackled issues of gay adoption and environmental issues in his books. In the latest, Chimpy Saves the Neighborhood , the plot revolves around a monkey named Chimpy and his best friend Matthew Chicken as well as his adopted parents, Juan and Benji. While touching upon environmental issues, the book also tackles LGBT hate crimes with Chimpy and Matthew Chicken building a robot because “their freedoms have been restricted.”
“I wanted the plot of this book to concern community violence against the LGBT community in San Francisco. Even given all of our advancements (including gay marriage) there still is violence in our community,” said LaCroce, 41, a gay man who’s married toBay Area Reporter assistant editor Matthew S. Bajko. “Particularly we still have violence against the most vulnerable of the LGBT community. When we begin to combat crime, we also look at how this restricts our freedoms.”
LaCroce’s book is a sequel to Chimpy Discovers His Family , which was published in 2010.
Author Gayle E. Pitman, Ph.D., wrote This Day In June revolving around the importance of LGBT Pride parades.
“It occurred to me that I’d never seen a children’s book about Pride before, and I thought that would be a fun, refreshing, and informative contribution to the LGBT children’s book genre,” said Pitman.
With illustrations by Kristyna Litten, the children’s book provides an enriched reading guide and a note to parents and caregivers as Pitman anchors every two-page spread with information about LGBT history and culture.
“So much of our history is being lost or maligned in some way,” added Pitman, 43, who identifies as pansexual and is a professor at Sacramento City College. “I was very surprised that almost nothing has been written about a guide for talking to children about sexual orientation and gender identity. When parents (especially if they’re straight) don’t know how to talk about these issues, they avoid them, and that’s dangerous.”
For many of the authors, having these issues open dialogue makes children more comfortable with themselves. Author Marcus Ewert published a story about a little boy named Bailey who dreams about making and wearing 10,000 dresses. Illustrated by Rex Ray and titled 10,000 Dresses , Bailey receives criticism from his family and friends about his choices.
“When I wrote the book in 2008, there were no books about trans kids and that needed to be addressed,” said Ewert, 44, a gay man who will be a keynote speaker on the American Library Association’s LGBT panel during its conference in San Francisco this summer. “At the time, people told me that no one in the world would publish [10,000 Dresses ]. It’s not true now as there are many books out there that are different. There is a mini publishing explosion of queer-themed books. It was the first book to be about a trans kid.”
For all five writers, they are pleased that there is now more diversity in LGBT children’s books, but Newman, for one, feels that movement has been slow.
“There’s some progress but it’s not enough,” said Newman. “We need more diverse books when it comes to issues of race, disability, religion, and gender. I hope to see a lot of progress in the future very quickly.”
As Newman’s iconic work celebrates 25 years, she is not alone in telling stories of the LGBT community. As she reflects back on her work, she imagines that little Heather and her mothers would be all grown up in a better world.
“The mothers would be in their early 50s in their respective careers as doctor and a carpenter,” Newman said. “Heather would be 30 years old and a feminist. She would be very happy and loves doing what she does.”

MLA Daithí McKay in gay rights appeal

28/05/2015 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

Ballymena Times – 07:20Wednesday 27 May 2015

Daithi McKay. (Editorial Image).

MLA Daithí McKay has welcomed the Republic’s marriage referendum result and called for the same rights for gay people to be extended North.

More than 62% voted for same-sex marriage – almost 38% were against it in last week’s referendum.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK which does not allow gay marriage after England, Wales and Scotland legalised same sex marriage last year.

Sinn Fein Assemblyman, Mr McKay, who was one of the sponsors of a recent debate in the Assembly on the issue, said: “This result was truly seismic and represents the lifting of discrimination against the gay community in the rest of the island of Ireland.

“The North now sticks out like a sore thumb as the only part of these islands, indeed, the only part of far Western Europe that does not permit marriage equality. That does not present a welcoming image to gay people at home or abroad.
“I do not see the sense in not giving gay couples the freedom to marry in Ballymena or Ballycastle in their own communities and with their own families when they have the right to do so in Dundalk and Donegal.
“Sinn Féin will continue to work towards equality for members of the LGBT community. I am delighted with the result of the referendum.
“I will be even more delighted when I see the same rights being extended to gay men and women here in North Antrim and the North as a whole,” said the Sinn Fein Assemblyman.

What Ireland’s Same-Sex Marriage Vote Means for Northern Ireland

28/05/2015 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

EXPANDING THE LGBTQ CONVERSATION

MAY 27 2015 8:00 AM

By Liam Hoare

Par527896 — In December 2005, supporters of same-sex marriage stand in front of protesters vehemently opposed to “anything approaching gay marriage” outside Belfast City Hall as the first partnership ceremonies for U.K. same-sex couples are held.*

A month before the Irish people gave their wholehearted support to marriage equality, the Northern Ireland Assembly voted down same-sex marriage for the fourth time. It was embarrassing then, but after the referendum in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland’s status as the only nation in the British Isles willing to deny same-sex couples the right to marriage—an outpost of homophobic discrimination in Western Europe—is even more disgraceful and unjustifiable.

Northern Ireland’s ignoble status is, on one level, a product of the British political system. Marriage is a “devolved” issue, meaning that England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland have their own laws on same-sex marriage. The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which introduced marriage equality to England and Wales, did not apply to Northern Ireland, although the law did specify that same-sex marriages entered into in England and Wales are recognized as civil partnerships in Northern Ireland.

Yet the absence of same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland is clearly also a matter of political unwillingness. This doesn’t come from the nationalist parties. Both Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic and Labour Party support it, as does the nonsectarian Alliance Party (although some Alliance and SDLP members were mysteriously missing during the recent vote on same-sex marriage). The problem in Northern Ireland is very much the Democratic Unionist Party.

Since it was established by Ian Paisley in 1971, the DUP has been associated with social conservatism and Protestant fundamentalism. Paisley and the DUP were behind the Save Ulster From Sodomy campaign, founded in 1977, which sought for years to prevent the decriminalization of homosexuality in Northern Ireland. The DUP opposed civil partnerships for gay and lesbian couples at the time they were made law in 2005 (and still does), just as it opposes marriage equality today.

Homophobia is inherent to the DUP. Ian Paisley Jr., a member of the U.K. parliament, showed that the apple didn’t fall very far from the tree when he said he was “repulsed” by homosexuality. Iris Robinson, wife of Northern Ireland’s first minister,called homosexuality “disgusting, loathsome, nauseating, wicked, and vile.” And Jim Wells recently resigned as the region’s health minister after saying, “You don’t bring a child up in a homosexual relationship. That … child is far more likely to be abused and neglected.”

Political homophobia is connected with religious power. Northern Irish people find themselves living under what has been called “essentially a theocratic regime,” due to the hold the Calvinist fundamentalist Free Presbyterian Church has over the DUP. A recent study found that Free Presbyterianism “remains the largest faith among both DUP members and elected representatives.” As many as 30.5 percent of DUP members are Free Presbyterians, compared with a measly 0.6 percent of the Northern Irish population at large.

Since the 1970s, Northern Ireland’s LGBTQ activists have used the court system as one path to legal and social change. Indeed, it is because of the European Court of Human Rights that homosexuality was decriminalized in Northern Ireland. In the case of Dudgeon v the United Kingdom, the court ruled that the criminalization of male homosexual acts violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights with regard to the respect for private and family life. (The plaintiff, Jeff Dudgeon, had been persecuted by Northern Irish police throughout the 1970s on account of his homosexuality.)

This month, a court in Belfast ruled against Ashers Baking Co., a Christian-run bakery that refused service to a gay activist who wanted them to make a cake that included a slogan in support of same-sex marriage.* The judge determined that a business run for profit could not use freedom of religion to exempt itself from anti-discrimination law. Right now, there is a challenge underway to the Northern Irish government’s nonrecognition of same-sex marriages conducted in other parts of the United Kingdom.

Alongside the legal route, a mass demonstration organized by the Rainbow Project, Amnesty International, and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions is planned for June 13 in Belfast. “Northern Ireland is now the last bastion of discrimination against gay people in these islands,” Amnesty’s Northern Ireland Program Director Patrick Corrigan said. “People in Northern Ireland are sick of living in a discriminatory backwater for gay people.” Faced with a sclerotic political system, the courts and the streets are, for now, the gay community’s best hopes of overturning the status quo.

*Correction, May 27, 2015: This article originally misstated that Ashers Baking Co. refused service to a gay couple. It was gay activist Gareth Lee who ordered the cake. Also, due to a photo provider error, the caption on this photo originally misstated that the people in the photo were protesting same-sex marriage. The people standing in front of the banner are supporters of same-sex marriage.

Friendships Are Hard.

27/05/2015 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

Editorial: I have republished this article to show how being gay has a profound effect on your life, the choices that you make, and even the friends that you have. Being gay is hard, especially when you are at school, college or university and in Northern Ireland. Things have got better, but if some of our current crop of politicians have their way we will be going back to pre-Jef Dudgeon’s landmark European court case which forced the changes in the law to make us free to be a member of the LGBT community.

By most standards, I’ve won the queer lottery. I live in one of the first U.S. states to have legalized gay marriage; I have parents who went through only a minimal learning curve when I came out to them; I attend a high school that not only has a gay-straight alliance, but whose gay-straight alliance is active enough that the school newspaper often reports on its activities. I’m lucky. I know that.
And yet, here I am: seventeen years old, proudly queer, out to everyone I know online—but I’m still beyond terrified to tell anyone in school of my sexuality. Skipping over the inevitable self-torture (“If you can’t even come out here, how are you ever going to live out of the closet at all?”), I think it’s safe to blame my fears on friendship.
Here’s the thing: most of my friends are straight guys. And in high school—and possibly everywhere—being gay, bisexual, pansexual, or otherwise Not Straight while remaining close friends with straight people of the same gender is often really, really hard. And it’s not for any one reason, except maybe some combination of a) excessive hormones and b) people’s lack of exposure to actual same-gender relationships. But it’s always there—this unspoken agreement that being gay, while not explicitly bad, isweird, something meant for only one kind of person in a place that isn’t here.
Though within my social circle I only occasionally hear homophobic jokes made, the otherness of who I am slips into seemingly every conversation—like how discussing a recent Game of Thrones episode sends me into an internal panic when one person mentions how unnecessary and gross “those gay scenes” are, or how another has to preface his reluctance to talk to a girl he likes with “I’m not gay, but…,” or how people use the phrase “this is an accepting school” as a punch line rather than as a motto.
And, look, if I were to come out tomorrow—just leap up onto the dining hall table and shout “I DECLARE MY HOMOSEXUALITY!!!!!”*—I doubt I’d lose more than a single friend. I doubt many people would stop talking to me, because this is an accepting school, because I don’t have to fear for my safety, because I’m lucky. But it would be… different. Even at my school, most people really don’t understand m/m attraction. Mostly, I think this is for the obvious reason—when you tell a group of straight high school boys that you’re interested in guys, their minds automatically go to the whole sex part. Equally unhelpful is how some people instantly connect a same-gender friend being gay or bisexual with the fact that the friend could now be attracted to them, and then totally change how they act around him because of it.
That is what scares me: friends suddenly becoming hyperaware of everything I do and say for fear that I’m attracted to them.
I don’t think my feelings are irrational, either. I mean, there’s a reason why every single guy who has come out at my school is friends with almost all girls.
And it’d be so easy for me to say that my fears exist because my friends are bad, or because they’re shallow, or whatever it is, but that’s just not true. These kids, they are funny and cool and intelligent and self-aware and—yeah—they also really don’t have a problem with someone’s sexuality. I can name maybe one person within my social circle who I think would actually be upset. But there is still this general acknowledgement that straight is the strict default, and that queer people only exist “somewhere over there.”
To me, this has always been the hardest thing about being gay in high school—trying to grapple with the fact that even people as awesome as my friends might look at me differently after knowing this one part of who I am.
***
I tell you this because I want to illustrate the way in which being queer influences my everyday life. In large part because of my sexuality, I’m constantly questioning the value of my friendships, constantly feeling isolated by my own “otherness.”
After coming out, in itself such a huge and terrifying moment and one that we always need more YA books to cover, for me and for many other queer teens I’ve talked to, a hell of a lot of our struggles seem to revolve around friendships. But in queer YA, just like in straight YA, a lot of times complex looks at friendship get passed up in favor of more screen time for romantic relationships.
And including romance is great—one can never have too much kissing, especially of the queer variety, and I really hope the recent increase in queer romance books continues. But although romance is a big deal to a lot of us, it’s also not usually the most pressing issue. As much as I sometimes wish it were, my sexuality is not a nice little box that I can slap a ribbon on and push aside when I’m bored. Rather, it seeps into everything I do, and it makes something as basic as maintaining positive friendships with straight people of the same gender a constant struggle.
The YA category is famously riddled with the “Gay Best Friend” trope, where the straight hero has a queer friend/sidekick. In this trope, the hero usually affirms once or twice how totally cool with their friend’s sexuality or gender identity they are and then drops the subject in favor of, like, fighting bad guys and toppling regimes and stuff. And I think that’s good—that the main character is accepting, yeah, and also that the book has some form of queer representation.
But it’s also so rare for us to get the story from the point of view of that gay best friend—to hear about all of the times the straight hero said something homophobic to him without realizing, how many times the friend opened his mouth to point it out and then psyched himself out of it, and how often moments like these have made him feel different, and other, and alone.
And I look at that, that gay best friend trope, and I think: this is my life. The struggles that kid must go through every day—that’s what I deal with, too.
What I’d like to see—and what I hope to write—is more YA books along these lines, books that take hard looks at sexuality in the context of high school friendships and at the myriad of little internal conflicts that result from them.
Struggling with friendships is also in no way limited to a) males and b) sexuality. (I focused on these aspects only because they’re my personal experience.) It extends to all genders and to people all across the queer spectrum. From what I’ve heard, many, many LGBTQIA+ people have a hard time navigating their friendships, and I think it’s hugely important that we have books to guide us.
I mean, reading YA has already helped me immensely in understanding who I am. As far as I’m concerned, there is nothing queer YA can’t do.
***
*By the way, “I Declare My Homosexuality” is going to be the title of my tell-all memoir. Look out, publishing world.

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John Hansen is a YA writer, a high school student, a blogger, and a former literary agent intern. You can follow him on Twitter at @ABoredAuthor.