RUTH Davidson will today tell a Belfast audience that Scotland has become a better place because of equal marriage, as she enters a fraught debate over the issue in Northern Ireland.
The Scottish Conservative leader, in a lecture at Belfast's Pride celebrations, will speak of her own experience as a Protestant unionist, engaged to Catholic Irishwoman, and say that she considers that equal marriage is not about "any one religion, country or community".
Northern Ireland remains the only part of the UK where gay people can not get married, despite Stormont narrowly voting in favour of equality last year. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) deployed what is known as a 'petition of concern', meaning measures require a cross-community majority to pass, to effectively veto the proposal moving forward.
Ms Davidson, at an event organised by Amnesty International, is expected to say: "As a practicing Christian, a protestant and a unionist who is engaged to a Catholic Irishwoman, for me, equal marriage isn’t about one religion, country or community.
"It is about people in Northern Ireland being afforded the same rights as everybody else. Scotland is a better place today because of equal marriage and I want to take that positive message from our experiences here to Belfast and beyond."
Equal marriage came into force in Scotland in December 2014, after MSPs voted for it by an overwhelming majority the previous February. In England and Wales, the first gay marriages took place in March 2014.
In the Republic of Ireland gay marriage became legal late last year, after 62 per cent voted in favour of amending the country's constitution to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry in a May 2015 referendum.
Colin Hart, Campaign Director of the Coalition for Marriage (C4M) said he welcomed discussion over how to strengthen marriage, which he described as "the most stable form of human relationship".
However, he added: "C4M and our 40,000 members in Northern Ireland do not believe that ripping up the centuries old definition of marriage, the lifelong union between a man and woman, will achieve this. Rewriting the current law dilutes our understanding of marriage and opens the door to future redefinitions.
"Those arguing for introducing gay marriage must also address the way a small minority of people exploit this debate to attack those with traditional views. Earlier this year in Northern Ireland we saw the terrible situation, where a baker and his family were dragged through the courts by a taxpayer funded quango, for declining to decorate a cake carrying a slogan advocating a changing the law.
"In England we have seen other cases where those who back traditional marriage have faced being sacked, demoted or having their wages cut. Changing the law in Northern Ireland will lead to many more similar cases."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel