Traditional Unionist Voice has today published its response to the Northern Ireland Office’s consultation on same-sex religious marriage.
Commenting party leader Jim Allister said:
“This is a belated consultation which closes after same sex marriages became legal in Northern Ireland. It is unarguable that protection for churches was an afterthought once same-sex marriage had been imposed.
“Much of the actual content of the consultation is fine in so far as it goes. However, the fact that we take no issue with the questions the NIO actually asks merely underscores the complete disinterest on the part of the NIO in the wide-ranging implications of these changes for a raft of people completely ignored by the consultation.
“Paragraph 25 explicitly states that the protections afforded to churches and ministers of religion will not apply to registrars. There is no space for anyone to express an opinion on this in the response form.
“As we point out in our response, while the NIO is disinterested, this issue has provoked debate and legislation in other parts of the world.
“Why does the NIO choose to ignore this serious issue which impacts on the civil, religious, human and employment rights of registrars? Here we have a situation where people have taken up the position of registrars under one set of conditions and now those conditions have been radically changed. If, as is often claimed, same sex marriage was really about rights then this issue would have been addressed.
“In paragraph 50 of the consultation it is stated that:
“The ‘non-compulsion’ provision will not apply to service providers that are not religious bodies, such as hoteliers, wedding photographers and florists.”
“Again it is remarkable that the consultation would seek to gloss over this issue, particularly following the Ashers judgement. The Supreme Court held that:
“the defendants had refused to fulfil the order because of their religious objection to same-sex marriage not because they perceived the plaintiff to be homosexual or because he associated with homosexuals”.
“Yet now the NIO proposes to change the law so as to strip people like the MacArthur family of legal protection should they refuse to provide services for a same sex marriage.
“This is intolerable and wrong but the NIO doesn’t want to know.”
TUV’s full response is here.