Derry, Londonderry, Doire or the Walled City. Whatever you like to call it, I call it home.
I’m extremely proud of where I’m from. My family are here, as well as all my close friends. However, there is something that annoys me about where I live and that is the fact that if you are in love with someone of the same sex, well then, unlucky, you can’t marry them.
Some of my own friends and family are gay. It’s ridiculous to imagine that in my city it is illegal for them to get married but five minutes down the road where the border is, it’s legal.
The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) rates Northern Ireland as the worst place in the UK for LGBT people to live. Northern Ireland has 74% equality of rights compared to 92% in Scotland.
What makes us so different? It’s not as if everyone here is homophobic. In fact, prior to our 2017 elections Stormont voted as a majority in favor to legalise same-sex marriage. However, our First Minister Arlene Foster has stated that her and her party The DUP would continue to use a petition of concern to block any bill which would legislate to allow same-sex marriage.
In Derry, we have a history ourselves of being treated like second class citizens. We fought for years for our equal rights and in some ways, I feel it is a let-down to those before us if we do not stand up for the marginalised now and help give them a voice.
Recently I was speaking to one of my old friends, Gareth Sweeney, who came out as gay when we were at secondary school. Even at my old school, which I only left three years ago it was almost frowned upon to be gay, and considering it was an all-boys Catholic grammar school, I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for Gareth to come out. He told me how growing up “Northern Ireland is one of the most homophobic places in Europe. In school ‘gay’ was used as an insult rather than a term.” It upset me to know that this is how one of my own friends was made feel in our country. It’s in our culture at a young age that this word is to be used as an insult and this something that needs to be changed.
“Not having the basic rights that everyone else has just because they like someone of the opposite sex. They’re allowed to get married, divorced, have annulments and marry countless other people, but if someone who is gay wants to settle down with someone they love they literally can’t do it. They have to have a ‘civil partnership’ which isn’t fair at all.” Said Gareth Sweeney.
As I researched and wrote this piece I became increasingly upset to know that one of my friends felt like this during our time in secondary school. I mean isn't school supposed to be the best time of your life? It never occurred to me at the time just how difficult it was for Gareth to do this, to tell his classmates, teachers and family that he was gay.
How would you feel if you had to ask 1.8 million people permission to get married? Lesbians and gay men are denied the right to marriage every day in The North of Ireland. Martin Luther King Jr. once said “a right delayed is a right denied.” It’s time to stand up for basic human rights. The time for change is now.
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