'New culture war': Northern Ireland's LGBT+ muny fights for gay marriage | Rters

Contents:

• SF’S GAY MARRIAGE BACKG NTRAST TO PAST ‘TOLERANCE OF HOMOSEXUALY’
• THE MORAL GUARDIANS? DUP AND SN FE SUPPORTERS’ ATTUS TO GAY AND ABORTN RIGHTS
• ANTI-GAY ATTUS NORTHERN IRELAND ARE CHANGG
• 'NEW CULTURE WAR': NORTHERN IRELAND'S LGBT+ MUNY FIGHTS FOR GAY MARRIAGE
• GAY MARRIAGE VOTE EXPOS EP DIVISNS WH NORTHERN IRELAND PARTI
• NORTHERN IRELAND REJECTS GAY MARRIAGE FOR 5TH TIME
• GAY MARRIAGE NORTHERN IRELAND: CATHOLICS AND UNNISTS BLOCK MOTN

SF’S GAY MARRIAGE BACKG NTRAST TO PAST ‘TOLERANCE OF HOMOSEXUALY’

“It’s about an absolute regnn of people’s equaly, rpect for people’s inty, rpect for people’s choic and an affirmatn that we wish our cizens to be ee, equal and happy, ” said Ms Fé print Gerry Adams said many people had a fay member, iend or work lleague who was gay.

Urban voters, women and young people are most likely to vote for Warfield, the Sn Fé mayor of South County Dubl, said a Y vote would send a msage to young people who were gay, reassurg them that "'s okay to be gay, to e to terms wh your sexualy the school yard or your lol GAA club" Fé is also llg for a Y vote the referendum on rcg the mimum age for printial ndidat om 35 to 21. A “bizarre” sectn of the IRA’s trag manual lays bare the srn for homosexuals felt by many people the paraary group – somethg which “fli the face” of Sn Fe’s prent gay-iendly Fe MLA and ex-IRA bomber Gerry Kelly at the 2014 Belfast Pri para Belfast cy centreThat is the view of former IRA man Anthony McIntyre, who was speakg to the News Letter about the ntents of the Green Book – the facto operatg gui of the Provisnal movement, which set out at length how the “war” was to be Sn Fe has hailed the recent mov to troduce gay marriage to the Provce, and clar has a “longstandg posn of support for LGBT equaly all dimensns of life and law”.

THE MORAL GUARDIANS? DUP AND SN FE SUPPORTERS’ ATTUS TO GAY AND ABORTN RIGHTS

In addn, s gay rights wg (Sn Fe LGBT) boasts that is “Ireland’s largt LGBT+ polil anisatn”.

ANTI-GAY ATTUS NORTHERN IRELAND ARE CHANGG

However, this paper recently me across referenc to homosexualy the IRA manual which stand stark ntrast wh the party’s progrsive rhetoric of today. Anthony McIntyre, pictured outsi his home the Republic of Ireland, December 2014In addn, both ex-IRA bomber Shane Pl O’Doherty and gay mpaigner Jeff Dudgeon both said they believe the Provisnals have sanctned punishment attacks agast homosexuals the past. Jefey Dudgeon, gay mpaigner and veteran UUP figureIt reads: “Volunteers should attempt to unrstand the mentaly which unrli this act and so be better prepared to meet this angle if and when happens to them, ” addg that such huiatn “has eper unrton than one would gus” ntu: “Volunteers should unrstand that om a psychologil pot of view this act is lled a penis plex.

“This plex is herent the homosexual and although the terrogators themselv may be married men wh a fay dit supprsed homosexual tennci.

'NEW CULTURE WAR': NORTHERN IRELAND'S LGBT+ MUNY FIGHTS FOR GAY MARRIAGE

“He should look upon them as homosexuals wh the immuny of the tablishment, as people who bee sadistic om the homosexual tennci, which unrlie them. “The Green Book was exprsg sentiments which were very anti-gay, or if not anti-gay then at least ntemptuo of gays, scribg RUC members as somehow viant.

”He said IRA men were products largely of Catholic upbrggs, and “the fluence of relign has to a large extent shaped that animosy or antipathy towards the gay muny”. There was no real tolerance towards gays then.

”Meanwhile Mr O’Doherty, a bomb-maker who later turned his back on vlence, said he knew of two republins who he spected of havg been beaten prison by supposed ras for havg gay liaisons – somethg which was “thought at that time to be unthkably unrepublin” said: “Volunteers wh homosexual proclivi would have been regard as extreme secury risks, open to blackmail by secury forc and liable to bee rmers.

GAY MARRIAGE VOTE EXPOS EP DIVISNS WH NORTHERN IRELAND PARTI

“There was total tolerance of homosexuals and homosexualy, wh the nomenclature mon of the time beg ‘nancy boys’, ‘sissi’ and so on... You’d nearly thk the IRA never knew about child abe or rape by volunteers, never md homosexualy. ”Mr Dudgeon likewise said he believed the IRA had attacked people for “sexual mismeanours” cludg beg gay – but that this was hard to fd proof for sce the IRA “held no trials and kept no rerds” more general terms he said: “When we were mpaigng for crimalisatn the 1970s we received no support om any polil party.

”He also poted to “the adamant refal to accept was possible that Roger Casement was gay or that his diari were not fed by the Brs remas fairly universal republin circl” add: “Kra was often ed by natnalists an anti-gay way suggtg that policians and Brish tablishment figur were g the boys there – Judge Hart said there was no evince of this but the implitn was put about that every gay person pre-1970 Northern Ireland was volved some sort of sordid rg bee that was what gays did. ”It should be noted that is not only republins whose morn-day posn on homosexualy ntrasts wh past paraary UVF-lked PUP now mpaigns on a strong gay rights ticket.

But 1997 David Templeton, a Prbyterian mister who had recently been ught posssn of gay pornography by airport secury, was fatally attacked at home Newtownabbey by men wh spike-studd CAIN webse lists his killers as a “non-specific loyalist group”, but some media attribute to the UVF. The crime remas officially Green Book’s take on homosexualy, and the claims that the IRA sometim attacked men for beg gay, were put to Sn Fe. However, more so than any other moral issue, the ntentn that the DUP – as one journalist puts – is characterised by a ‘pathologil obssn wh homosexualy’, is, by far, the most persuasive argument and not whout strong evince.

NORTHERN IRELAND REJECTS GAY MARRIAGE FOR 5TH TIME

From the formatn of the party the 1970s, leadg members publicly articulated homophobic sentiment and the party wields s power to rist key gay rights policy chang. What driv the DUP’s anti-gay rights agenda? A credible answer ncerns the DUP’s roots as an evangelil Prottant party which am homosexualy as a s and an abomatn agast Biblil scripture.

Ian Paisley, then an MP, llected nearly 70, 000 signatur as he led a petn to stop the endg of crimalisatn of homosexualy Northern Ireland – a mpaign tled ‘Save Ulster om Sodomy’. Sce then, a number of DUP polil reprentativ exprsed homophobic sentiments, cludg brandg sexual mori as ‘abomable and filthy’ and to blame for AIDS Ai and Hurrine Katra, and labellg homosexualy ‘disgtg, loathsome, nseatg, shamefully wicked’ and ‘an abomatn’.

GAY MARRIAGE NORTHERN IRELAND: CATHOLICS AND UNNISTS BLOCK MOTN

Edw Poots, a DUP polician and Mister for Health, ed his posn to mata a ban on gay people donatg blood – a policy the urts cid was driven by Poots’ relig nvictns. As ‘Movg On’, Sn Fé’s ‘Policy for Lbian, Gay and Bi-Sexual Equaly’, stat: ‘… [natnalists] are only too well aware of what means to be treated as send-class cizens.

The DUP are amed as reactnary and homophobic ntrast to Sn Fé’s liberal and progrsive leangs. As the data Table 1 shows, whereas only 31% of DUP supporters were favour of the legalisatn of gay marriage, the equivalent proportn among Sn Fe supporters was 45% higher – at 76%. For example, whereas jt around two-fifths, or 41%, of Prottants supported the legalisatn of gay marriage, the equivalent percentage among the Catholic populatn was markedly higher, at 67%.

As the data Table 3 monstrat, while ngency ethnonatnal inty – the extent to which Prottants see themselv as Brish and adopt a unnist label, and Catholics see themselv as Irish and choose a natnalist label – has a differential and posive impact on attus towards gay marriage among SF supporters, this is not the se when DUP supporters are nsired.