Amnesty International calls on Northern Ireland to allow same-sex marriage
The human rights organisation Amnesty has urged Northern Irish Politicians to push for same-sex marriage.
Politicians in Stormont are due to debate same-sex marriage today. Northern Ireland remains the only part of the UK where same-sex marriage is not currently possible.
The governing party, the DUP, have notoriously refused to back LGBT equality. They also proposed a “conscience clause” that would exempt religious people from following equality laws.
Amnesty International’s Northern Ireland Programme Director, Patrick Corrigan, said: “By their words and actions, too many of Northern Ireland’s politicians are making gay people second-class citizens in their own country.
“That must now end. This vote in the Assembly is a litmus test for politicians’ commitment to make Northern Ireland an equal place for all.
“Those opposing equality for gay and lesbian couples are on the wrong side of history. According to the last Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey, people here now support a change in the law to allow same-sex marriage by a ratio of two-to-one and that number is increasing every year.
“Marriage should be available to same-sex couples in Northern Ireland, just as it is in Scotland, England and Wales and may soon be in the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland is being left behind as a discriminatory backwater for gay and lesbian people.
“Politicians must not allow personal bias to infect public policy-making on the issue of civil marriage, as we have already seen with the blood donation ban, attempts to block adoption by same-sex couples, and the discriminatory ‘conscience clause’.”
The DUP’s Jim Wells resigned as Health Minister today after making anti-gay remarks.
