Yesterday was a good day, not so much for the fact that it rained non stop here, but rather because after a lengthy battle, the NI Courts overturned the ban on unmarried and same-sex couples being allowed to adopt in Northern Ireland. The landmark ruling was made yesterday after the NI Human Rights Commission challenged the current (and outdated) law which prohibited any unmarried couple (co-habiting opposite sex couples, same-sex couples in a civil partnership or not) from applying jointly to adopt.

The presiding official in the case, Mr Justice Treacy, ruled that the current law unfairly discriminated against and in fact was aimed at same-sex couples in a Civil Partnership. Single people are allowed to apply to adopt a child, however their partner (straight or gay) would be unable to claim joint parental rights if the adoptive parent died. More importantly, however, Mr Treacy claimed that the current eligibility criteria was not in the best interests of the child.

Northern Ireland has been lagging behind the mainland UK for some time now, as England and Wales have allowed joint adoption by same-sex couples since 2005, followed by Scotland in 2009. Currently the law in Northern Ireland, prohibits co-habiting unmarried heterosexual couples or gay couples in a Civil Partnership to jointly adopt, nor does it allow same-sex couples to register their names as both parents on a birth certificate.

Despite the ruling, the decision to overturn the ban ultimately rests with Edwin Poots, the current DUP Health Minister who has been on record in the past as describing gay people as an 'abomination'. Poots' record on LGBT issues is widely known, in September 2011 he refused to bring Northern Irish blood donation legislation in line with England and Wales and preferring to maintain the ban on gay and bisexual men from donating blood.

His reasons? Have a guess.

As an openly gay man in a committed relationship I of course welcome the ruling, in the future I may want to start a family and as there is little option for me to go down the typical route adoption may be the only way for me to do this. Until yesterday this wasn't an option for me and my partner, and for thousands of other unmarried and same-sex couples across NI. Currently in Northern Ireland an estimated 2,511 (2011 statistic) children are in the care of local authorities, with only 116 children being adopted in 2010. Though there are of course many factors, the fact that unmarried and same-sex couples were until yesterday legally prohibited from adopting was undoubtedly a factor in the small number of adoptions vs the high numbers of children in state care.

There will of course be protests against the move, as Edwin Poots himself has already stated that he plans to appeal the decision (With public money?) in the High Courts as soon as possible. Bear in mind that this is a Minister who earlier in the week declared that the newly opened Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast would be shut down if it failed to abide by the law, and yet here is failing to abide by the law himself. As Minister he is ultimately held accountable by the Ministerial Code, and as such it is not up to him or any other elected official as to which parts of the law he can abide by and which parts he can ignore.

The ability for Poots and those in the DUP to hide behind the law is no longer an option, the mask is slipping and the prejudice in the DUP towards the LGBT community is being laid bare. Like it or not, same-sex couples are just as loving, caring and stable as heterosexual couples, and the overturn of the ban represents a significant step forward for Northern Ireland and the equality that is so sorely lacking here. There is still much work to do, the campaign for equal civil marriage continues in Northern Ireland, as well as the campaign to remove the blanket blood ban on gay, bisexual and MSM men and with the ruling will come the need for greater support for unmarried and same-sex adoptive parents, who are now finally being treated equally under the law.

As a man of 24 who has experienced homelessness first hand, you will forgive me if I find George Osborne’s sustained and prolonged attack on the young and vulnerable insufferably despicable. I had decided not to watch the Tory Party conference, as my blood pressure is rather high enough without the added smug grin of Osborne and his Conservative party cronies adding to my systolic pressure. 
However I was unfortunate enough to learn, as had been rumoured, that the current Government is planning to axe housing benefit for those under the age of 25, because in Cameron’s World, everyone gets along great with their non-deceased, wealthy parents who live just round the corner in a five bedroom house. Wrong.

For me, and I suspect for many others my age, this is one of the many issues that has proven to me over and over again that the Conservative Party are out of touch to the point of delusional malice. A cut to the housing benefit for under 25s flies directly in the face of the previous Labour Government’s National Youth Homelessness scheme to provide temporary housing to homeless young people in England, a move that was welcomed by charities such as YMCA England and Centrepoint back in 2007. The statistics back then demonstrated that around a third of people who had been declared homeless were under the age of 25, and around a quarter of those young people were homeless because their parents were no longer able or willing to accommodate them. 

Few issues are as divisive as abortion, aside from the death penalty or euthanasia, all deal with the issue of the sanctity of life, and very rarely do issues such as these come before national legislatures. However in the case of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, both authorities currently criminalize abortion. Future Health Minister and current MLA for South Down, Jim Wells, caused a storm of controversy last month by stating that abortion in NI should remain illegal, even in cases of rape and incest. Speaking to the Nolan Show, Mr Wells was quoted as saying: “A termination of a pregnancy should not be the first option in that situation. The other option is that you kill the child who’s a totally innocent victim in this terrible set of circumstances.”

In relation to the issue of abortion legislation, Ireland (both Northern and Republic of) is a strange one. Out of over fifteen major parties across Ireland and dozens of smaller parties only three have visible pro-choice policies. The Socialist Worker’s Party, the Irish Labour party and Labour in NI are the only parties that are pro-choice, and even with that Irish Labour are heading for a split in their membership over the issue. Not even the Greens, a mostly proactive party in the area of social rights have reserved abortion as a conscience issue.

Bernie Smyth of Precious Life, an organisation that lobbies to defend existing anti-abortion legislation, had a rather heated radio debate with Alliance party MLA Anna Lo in August, claiming that allowing abortion in cases of rape would create a case of ‘bad law’ in which such legislation could lead to it being used a contraceptive. But what are the facts?

Recently in the US, Republican Senate hopeful Todd Akin made a fool of himself by claiming, contrary to decades of medical research, that in cases of ‘legitimate rape’ the female body had ways of ‘shutting that whole thing down.’ His critics ranged from President Obama right up to the Presidential hopeful for his own party, Mitt Romney, and quite rightly so. Often it has been said that it is not the place for men to tell women what to do with their bodies, and as a gay man who will never have to be confronted with that choice I am inclined to agree with them.

Having been brought up in a strictly Christian household, I am reluctantly pro-choice. I am not in favour of abortion, I don’t know a single person who is, but the law was not written for the good of my own conscience. The use of terms Pro-Life and Pro-Choice create a black and white attitude towards what is ultimately the most traumatic and difficult decision that a woman will ever have to make. I hate the term Pro-Life. I absolutely detest the implications it has for those who share opposing or even marginally different viewpoints. Does it make them Pro-Death? Of course not, however the power is in the wording, something that has very cleverly slipped under our noses.

The opinions on all sides of the debate are very passionate. I spoke to Krissy, a twenty-two year old single mother from Saintfield in County Down who told me that she “would have eternally regretted” a decision to terminate her pregnancy. Krissy lives with her son Jacob, now three years old, and told me that “There is a lot of pressure on young mothers to get abortions. Adoption and fostering are issues that are often overlooked.”
Lindsay, a twenty-two year old woman from Craigavon in County Armagh spoke to me, her belief being that “abortion should be allowed due to the emotional trauma it can have on both the mother and the child later in life.” but also adding that it should not become a method of contraception at the same time.
Claire Johnson of Belfast raised the issue of anonymity, explaining that  “...the fact that we would have to travel to Great Britain removes confidentiality to a certain extent - for example taking a week off work very suddenly, with the stress and expense of travelling thrown in.”

Speaking as an individual, Sinn Fein member Shane McKenna of Monaghan told me quite simply that “Forcing our women to go to England for abortions is one of the biggest scandals in Irish society.” This is in contrast to official Sinn Fein policy which is strongly in favour of anti-abortion legislation. Miche Doherty, an actor from Belfast, expressed similar sentiment, “The lack of abortion provision in NI/RoI is disgraceful. "Let them get the boat to England" is not a policy, it's a cop-out.”
Belfast-based writer, photographer and co-founder of Belfast Skeptics, Phil O'Kane added “Arguments against abortion, like everything else, need not be based on a religious doctrine, life is precious, and so is the life of the woman involved and the freedom to choose."

So where does this leave us? It is unlikely that the NI Executive will legislate to legalise abortion in Northern Ireland any time in the near future, unless Direct Rule is reinstated, but that isn’t likely to happen either. With the Labour party in Ireland the only major party pushing for a change in the Irish law to allow for abortion, it is unlikely to happen in the Republic either. The influences of both the Catholic and Protestant Churches in Ireland are massive when it comes to issues such as these, and it’s likely that we will see same-sex marriage legalised in Ireland long before Pro-Choice legislation is ever brought before the Dail or the NI Assembly.

Ultimately what we are talking about is a fundamental disregard for fact, and the lack of trust being given to women to govern their own bodies. I am not advocating for either agenda, as I said this is never a decision I will have to make, however there is certain inequality of opportunity and choice in Irish law, both North and South, and that is fundamentally wrong. I mentioned that I am reluctantly pro-choice, I am a gay man, and as such I am legally prohibited from adopting children of my own in Northern Ireland, and I would much rather be a father to an adopted child than allow abortions to take place. However I am denied that option. So when the DUP’s Jim Wells talks about ‘married couples’ he is not talking about same-sex couples, those in a civil partnership or opposite-sex couples who are cohabiting, there is a very narrow vision within the Christian right as to what constitutes a family, and that is also fundamentally wrong.

I ask myself the question, as someone who opposes abortion personally, if I ever had a daughter and she became pregnant through the result of sexual assault, would I be able to look her in the eye and tell her that I believed she would have to carry the child to term and either support the child or give it up for adoption? Both are incredibly traumatic paths to take for women who become pregnant through rape. Abortion is never a choice that anyone wants to make, ask any woman and they will tell you the same. It is the most traumatic and difficult choice a woman can make, and those who are faced with it will have to live with the decision, whatever that may be, for the rest of their lives. 

The focus needs to come off the role of the Church, and the conscience of politicians, and onto the choice of the woman, the role of counselling and medical professionals, and what is ultimately best for both woman and child.

With the news that former UUP member David McNarry MLA has joined UKIP, there has been something of an outpouring of both surprise from NI politicos and smugness from UKIP members across the water.
McNarry was expelled from the UUP back in May by party leader Mike Nesbitt over his closed-door negotiations with the DUP over Unionist Unity. This was seen by some as an overreaction by Nesbitt, keen to show his political prowess and assert his authority as leader, and did not win him many friends within the party.

News broke today, however, that UKIP leader and MEP Nigel Farage is visiting NI to welcome McNarry into the party with open arms, something that has put a cat amongst the pigeons, so to speak. With the NI Conservative Party still hoping for a defection from an MLA or Councillor and the Labour Party still refusing to enter local politics here McNarry's defection brings the first mainstream UK party into the Assembly.

There have been laughable cries from UKIP members in England and Wales that UKIP is 'on the rise in Ulster' and that they now have 'elected reps in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.'

This isn't the case. Not at all. Case in point: McNarry has not been elected on the UKIP ticket, he was elected on the UUP ticket and may find it hard to get re-elected if he decides to run again in 2016, which is doubtful as McNarry will be 68 by the time the next election rolls around. Also, UKIP already have elected representation in Northern Ireland. Henry Reilly, leader of UKIP in Northern Ireland was successfully returned to Newry and Mourne Council in 2011, albeit it was more of a personal vote than a vote for UKIP.


There might yet, however, be opportunities for new Unionist parties to emerge on the Northern Irish political landscape as the UUP looks to be in turmoil over the issue of Unionist unity and Mike Nesbitt's brutal dismissal of John McCallister as deputy leader on Monday. McCallister has been seen by many as a craftsman of liberalism within the party and, along with Basil McCrea and Danny Kinahan, (Both of whom voted in favour of same-sex marriage when the issue was brought to the Assembly on Monday for example) has been heralded as an example of moderate Unionism. The South Down MLA's criticism of what he sees as the UUP 'sleep walking into Unionist unity' has effectively cost him his position as Nesbitt's right hand man, and there remains the possibility of a defection from the UUP by McCallister and McCrea, though this is now seeming more and more unlikely as time goes by.


There is an inherent desperation being displayed by UKIP members in NI and further afield when members of other parties decide to defect, be they elected or not. As it stands, UKIP are currently behind the Greens in terms of local representation at Council level in England, nor do they have any elected representatives in the House of Commons, the London Assembly or indeed even the Scottish or Welsh legislatures. They currently fall behind the likes of the SNP and Plaid Cymru when it comes to Local Councillors in both Scotland and Wales. To say that UKIP is on the rise is a folly, and a fool's one.