Assembly members who have previously abstained are expected to vote in favour but DUP indicates it will use a parliamentary veto to thwart legislation

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A fifth attempt to make gay marriage legal in Northern Ireland will be made in the region’s parliament.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that still does not recognise same-sex marriage in law.

The Democratic Unionists (DUP), the largest party in the Stormont assembly, will use a parliamentary veto known as a “petition of concern” to torpedo any vote in favour of gay marriage.

Under the complex rules of power-sharing, unionist and nationalist parties can claim a bill or a piece of legislation cannot pass through the devolved assembly because it fails to command cross-community/Protestant-Catholic support.

In the four previous votes to attempt to bring in gay marriage reform there have been narrow majorities against change. In April, the margin was only two votes against gay marriage.

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Since then a number of unionists and assembly members from the cross-community Alliance party, who abstained in previous votes, have indicated they will vote in favour of the pro-gay marriage motion introduced by Sinn Féin and the Social Democratic and Labour party (SDLP) later on Monday.

Yet if there is a narrow vote in favour this time of same-sex marriage being legalised, the DUP has indicated it will use the petition of concern to sink the legislation.

Amnesty International said the petition was only designed to protect minority rights rather than discriminate against a minority – Northern Ireland’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty’s director in the province, said he hoped a majority of assembly members would vote in favour of the proposal for the first time.

Meanwhile, a group of pro-same-sex marriage Christians has made a late appeal to Stormont to support Monday’s motion.

Dr Richard O’Leary of the Faith in Marriage Equality group said Northern Ireland’s image as a backward society would be reinforced if the ban on equal marriage continued.

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“As a vulnerable, peripheral region fighting for its economic life in the teeth of a global depression, the message we risk sending out about Northern Ireland is that it is a region stuck in the past, out of touch with the cutting edge of global society. We should be honest – our history and the religious roots of our communal divisions mean we already suffer from a serious image problem. It is entirely possible that within a few years, Northern Ireland could find itself the last significant jurisdiction in western Europe where same-sex marriage remains prohibited and on the ‘wrong side of history’”, O’Leary said.

Monday’s joint SDLP and Sinn Féin motion states: “That this assembly calls on the executive to table legislation to allow for same-sex marriage.”

If the motion fails, at least three couples are preparing legal cases to challenge the same-sex marriage ban through the courts right up to the European court of human rights.