When cherishing equal citizenship falls short on equality

Patrick Corrigan wrote on Slugger yesterday asking “Equal marriage – how long will Northern Ireland’s gay couples have to wait?”. Today the DUP lodged a Petition of Concern against the motion which is to be debated in Stormont on Monday. As Steven Agnew tweeted ” Legislation designed to protect minorities used to prevent the passing of a motion to enhance minority rights”. This on the same day that the DUP were happily celebrating the Ulster Covenant, a document which calls on …

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Equal marriage – how long will Northern Ireland’s gay couples have to wait?

  When David Hockney published his etching In the dull village in 1967, the UK government was busy passing the Sexual Offences Act to (partially) decriminalise homosexuality in England and Wales. It was another fifteen years before Northern Ireland caught up – with the passage of the Homosexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 1982, and that was only after Jeff Dudgeon took a case to the European Court of Human Rights. In 2012 the campaign for LGBT equality has moved on. …

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