February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The Gay Rights Association said the ban is “blatant discrimination” and plans to mount a court challenge to reverse it. A law allowing same-sex couples to enter into a civil partnership in Britain and Northern Ireland comes into effect in December.
The Civil Partnership Act creates a new status, which two people of the same-sex can form a legal relationship by signing a document. It provides same-sex couples with parity of treatment with opposite-sex couples who enter into a civil marriage on a wide range of legal matters .
A motion proposing that same-sex civil partnership registration should “be not afforded the same recognition” as a civil marriage ceremony was tabled by Alliance Party Councilor Seamus Close and passed in July.
It also proposed that the council’s wedding room, the “Cherry Room”, should not be used for such registrations.
Patricia Lewsley from the SDLP said it amounted to discrimination but Ulster Unionist councilors said they were legally entitled to withhold the use of the room.
Robert Toner from the Gay Rights Association said it was discrimination against the gay and lesbian community in Lisburn. “I will be taking a case against Lisburn on discrimination,” he said, “I’m confident I will win.”
But Close said he wanted to “clearly demonstrate that there is a distinction between a civil marriage, which is a union between a man and a woman, and a civil partnership which may be lots of things but is not the latter.”
“The distinction between a civil partnership and a marriage is not being made; it is a fact of life. You cannot have a gay marriage.”
Sinn Fein’s Lisburn Council group leader, Paul Butler, said his party “fully support the rights of the gay and lesbian community to have civil marriages on council premises.
“We want to keep the spotlight firmly on Lisburn Council and the way they are treating same sex marriages, and are calling on the gay and lesbian community to challenge the ban.
“Lisburn have now added the gay and lesbian community to the list of people they discriminate against. Whether in the social, political or cultural spheres it is wrong that lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people should suffer discrimination,” he said.