Until homosexuality was decriminalised in 1992, two men caught having sex with each other in the Isle of Man faced life in prison. Twenty-three years on, the island is hoping to follow Ireland, the UK, the US and others by bringing in equal marriage.

The chief minister, Allan Bell, said a public consultation would be launched this month on the introduction of laws to enable same-sex couples to be married. In an interview with the Guardian, Bell said: “The message the Isle of Man has to send out in 2015 is that we are a tolerant, inclusive, open society. We abhor discrimination of any description and are outward looking and engaged with the outside world.”

The Irish referendum in May, in which 62% of voters backed same-sex marriage, had motivated the move, he said. “It helped to clarify my thoughts on a few things, and picking up the reaction locally I’ve not heard a single negative reaction to it, and that’s quite heartening.”

It is an open secret on the island that Bell has been in a relationship with another man for 21 years. “People know that I’m gay. I’ve never made a secret of it, but no one has ever asked me,” he said in his office in the Tynwald, the Manx parliament.

He said he wasn’t personally convinced about the idea of getting married, but added: “Everyone who loves their partner, whether same-sex or otherwise, must have equal rights to share their lives. It’s a totally logical human right and human expectation that straight couples and gay couples should be able to enjoy life with the partner that they choose and I totally support that.”

Subject to the outcome of the consultation and other drafting priorities, Bell intends to introduce a same-sex marriage bill into the branches of Tynwald during the 2015-16 legislative session.



He also hopes to pass an anti-discrimination law intended to prevent any repeat of the indignity suffered by a lesbian couple in Ramsey, in the north of the island, who in 2013 were told by an independent Methodist minister that they could not rent his house because of their sexuality.

Legalising same-sex marriage would draw a line under what Bell refers to as the Isle of Man’s “dark days”. That was in the 1980s and early 1990s when a campaign to decriminalise homosexuality was met with bigotry in the Manx parliament.

In one particularly fraught session in the House of Keys (MSK), the lower branch of the Tynwald, a politician named Mr RE Quine argued: “Any relaxation of the law on homosexuality is wholly unacceptable to me and I will not give such questionable and such objectionable practices a veneer of legality and respectability for it would be the thin edge of the wedge, and I am sure that it will lead to a charter for wimps and perverts to further infect society.”

Bell was in the chamber that day in 1987, and responded to another anti-gay rant by saying: “There can be few more awesome sights in life than bigotry, ignorance and hypocrisy united in moral outrage.”

Now 68, Bell winces at the memory of those debates. “It was disgusting. I felt dirty at the end of it. I felt for a period ashamed to be Manx because of the debate that was going around. You can read the Hansard now but you won’t be able to feel the emotion of being on the receiving end of those words in a parliamentary setting.”

It was “demeaning”, both as a gay man and a member of the MSK, he said: “It was just such a horrible feeling altogether to know that your own colleagues had this view of that lifestyle.”

Alan Shea at home in Douglas. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Outside the debating chamber, the hero of the Manx battle for gay rights is Alan Shea. On 5 July 1991 he wore a concentration camp uniform fashioned from Marks & Spencer pyjamas to petition parliament on Tynwald Day. On this Manx bank holiday, anyone may approach Tynwald Hill at St John’s and present a petition for redress. Dressed in grey and black stripes, with a pink triangle and label with number 626262 (the Isle of Man government phone number), Shea drew parallels with Nazi persecution of homosexuals.

In the Douglas house he shares with his partner, Stephen, Shea showed the Guardian videos made by Outrage!, the UK-based gay rights campaigning group which supported his fight. Viewed through a 2015 lens, the remarks the men receive from ordinary Manx folk are shocking: one fellow refers to them all as “bum blasters”. As Shea walks up the hill with his petition, soldiers hiss at him en masse.

The couple were among the first on the island to enter into a civil partnership after their introduction in 2011. This weekend Shea said he did not believe that the equal marriage legislation would be brought in next year. “It’s a fantasy. I don’t see why Allan Bell has put it out to consultation. It’s just a delaying tactic. These things take a long time. After the consultation, you have the first reading of the bill, then the second reading, then the amendments. I don’t see it passing in this parliament. There’s a general election in November and it may be that the new chief minister isn’t pro-LGBT like Allan Bell.”

Alan Shea in his concentration camp uniform in 1991. Photograph: Alan Shea

But Shea, now 58, said he would never have believed 24 years ago when he wore the concentration camp uniform that gay marriage would be under serious discussion. “I would never have believed it. Not after everything I went through. When I started campaigning, I received death threats, abuse in the streets. I couldn’t get a job. It was almost like I had been blacklisted.

“It was 10 years after the Tynwald Day protest before I was able to get a job. My house was under constant surveillance, police would question people coming in and out – once they searched it saying they had reason to believe I was harbouring an IRA terrorist called Mad Dog McGee, which was just ridiculous. I’m still waiting for an apology from the police for what they put me through.”



Shea’s bravery is now recognised by the Manx Museum, which has his concentration camp uniform.

In July the gay rights activist Peter Tatchell addressed a packed meeting on the island. He told those present that even the Pitcairn islands in Polynesia – population 48 – had passed an equal marriage act this year, noting that many of the early Pitcairn settlers were of Manx descent. “If the Pitcairn islands can bring in gay marriage, surely the Isle of Man can too,” he said, claiming that the legislation would not need extensive redrafting. Just one clause would need to be amended or struck out, he said.

Bell said he would give the council of ministers a free vote on the bill, and he was quite confident it would pass.

This summer the Guardian contacted all 24 members of both of the House of Keys and the Legislative Council, the 11-member upper chamber of the Tynwald. Of those who responded, 11 MSKs said they would support same-sex marriage, one said he wanted the issue to be decided in a referendum and one said he would vote no. Of the legislative council members who replied, two said they were opposed and four were in favour.

Bishop Robert Paterson. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

One member of the Legislative Council who says he is duty bound to oppose the measure is Robert Paterson, the bishop of Sodor and Man. He said marriage had always been defined as the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others for life.

“What many Christians have a problem with is using the word marriage to describe something that is already described. The word marriage means something and it is not so easy for the state simply to say that ‘what I meant by that word on day one means something else on day two’,” he said.

“There are a lot of similarities between gay marriage and marriage between a man and woman. I’ve often likened it to having a cup of tea and a cup of coffee. Ninety-nine per cent of those two cups is water. So in other words the two states are virtually identical. The difference is that one’s got coffee and one’s got tea in it. So what that means is that if I want a cup of coffee, I ask for a cup of coffee. If I want a cup of tea, I ask for a cup of tea. If you tell me that in future cups of tea will be called cups of coffee, I say: is that a matter of equality? Am I actually achieving equality by saying that x is the same as y when they are very, very similar but the one difference is that one is for people of the same sex and one is the people of different sexes.”

He insisted the church had been “very friendly” to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people over the years, saying: “ I have a very close friend, a gay priest in the church of England, who I have been friends with for 42 years. He would be glad to see gay marriage, that’s his view, but he hasn’t regarded the church as a hostile place.”

• This article was amended on 7 October 2015 to correct the spelling of Ramsey, from Ramsay as an earlier version said.

