With the republic seemingly set to legalise same-sex marriage, the province’s resistance to the change could soon be tested

Northern Ireland is closely watching for the outcome of Friday’s Irish vote on gay marriage, knowing that if, as expected, the yes vote prevails it would stick out as the last place in the British isles resisting legalisation.



But that resistance will soon be tested. A gay couple who married in England have already signalled that they will mount a legal challenge against the ban in the north.

“They have asked the family court to make a declaration that their marriage was lawfully constituted at inception and that it remains lawful in Northern Ireland,” said Gavin Boyd, a Belfast-based activist with the Rainbow Project, one of Northern Ireland’s main gay rights organisations. The case will next be heard in November.

Sinn Féin has tried on several occasions to push a gay marriage bill through the regional assembly in Stormont, but has been blocked by the Democratic Unionists, the largest party in the province. Gay marriage became legal in England, Scotland and Wales in 2014.

After the DUP vetoed a gay marriage equality law in April, Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness, suggested there should be a region-wide referendum to allow the local electorate to decide on the matter once and for all. This was rejected by the DUP.



Boyd said the news of a legal challenge was particularly relevant in the same week the republic’s voters were going to the polls to vote in the marriage equality referendum.



“If, as seems likely, the referendum passes, then Northern Ireland will be the only region in these islands where same-sex marriages are neither conducted nor recognised,” he said.

“This not only creates legal anomalies whereby a person’s relationship is reclassified as a civil partnership with their consent when they come from other parts of the UK or Ireland but actively incentivises LGBT people to leave Northern Ireland in search of a more welcoming home in other places,” he added.

Unlike in the rest of the UK, issues such as gay rights and marriage equality in Northern Ireland resemble the “culture wars” struggles in the US between liberals and born-again Christians, with many of the latter wielding influence on the Republican party.



The region is the only part of the UK where the Department of Health maintains a ban on gay men donating blood to the local NHS because the DUP has repeatedly taken up this ministry in the power-sharing government.



DUP health ministers past and present along with their leader, Peter Robinson, the first minister, have also demonstrated strong support for many Evangelical Christian causes. They backed a bakery firm’s refusal to bake a pro-gay marriage themed cake. A court in Belfast earlier this week ruled that the family-run Ashers Bakery was guilty of discrimination.



Following the ruling, the DUP plan to introduce a “freedom of conscience” law into the Stormont assembly that would allow born-again Christians and people of all faiths to refuse a business transaction that went against their religious beliefs. Sinn Féin and others in the parliament have vowed to block that bill.



Gay sex was still criminalised until Jeff Dudgeon won a landmark case in 1981 at the European court of human rights in Strasbourg, overturning that law and forcing the direct-rule British government to legalise homosexual relations in Northern Ireland. The Rev Iain Paisley responded with his “Save Ulster from Sodomy” campaign, which later petered out.

