David QuinnThe DUP is starting to look like an attractive option for some Catholics in the North, writes David Quinn
In 2012, a well-known priest in the North, Fr Eugene O’Neill, said something that was previously unutterable and maybe even literally unthinkable. He questioned whether Catholics in Northern Ireland had to be nationalists.
He was reacting to events south of the border such as the closing down of the Irish embassy to the Holy See (since reopened). He suggested that the Republic was becoming “a cold house for Catholics”.
Since then, things have become worse. Catholic schools are under continual attack. There are constant attempts to force them to change their admissions policy, their employment policy and even their ethos.
In 2013, we introduced our first abortion law and now the Government, with the full backing of the opposition parties are rushing through the most radical family law reform in the history of the State – the Children and Family Relationships Bill – in preparation for the referendum on same-sex marriage on May 22.
Resistance
Meanwhile, in the Northern Ireland Assembly, several motions in favour of same-sex marriage have been defeated while there is continued strong resistance to the liberalisation of the North’s abortion law.
In addition, there is currently underway an attempt to insert a new conscience clause into the equality law there.
In each of the above cases the prime mover isn’t the nationalist parties, but the DUP. This is what has some Catholics questioning their previous allegiance to the nationalist parties. Previously they saw those parties as being sympathetic to Catholic concerns and the DUP as being irredeemably hostile. Now they are beginning to wonder.
I know this myself because when I have given talks in the North, Catholics say this to me. It’s not that they’re unionists per se. It’s just that they feel they are now being forced to divide their loyalties between their nationalism and their Catholicism.
If Sinn Féin and the SDLP were opposed to same-sex marriage and gay adoption, if they both strongly opposed more liberal abortion laws, and if they both supported strong conscience rights for religious believers it would be another matter. But this is not the case.
It’s true that the SDLP is still more opposed to abortion than Sinn Féin is. But on the other issues they are as one. In other words, they are exactly like all the main parties in the Republic.
For example, when the Northern Ireland Assembly voted on two separate occasions on a motion favouring same-sex marriage not one Catholic Member of the Local Assembly (MLA) voted against. It was left up to unionist politicians to do that.
Several SDLP MLAs abstained, but that was it. If they had voted against they would have lost the party whip. That’s so typical of Irish politics on both sides of the border.
On that occasion, the Catholic bishops of Northern Ireland spoke out against the motion. They found no allies in the erstwhile Catholic parties. Their friends were in the DUP.
In fact, I gave a talk on the subject when the last motion was before the Northern Ireland parliament. It was mainly DUP members who turned up.
Now the Catholic bishops in the North, led by the Bishop of Down and Connor, Noel Treanor, have spoken out in favour of adding a conscience clause to equality legislation. Once again they are finding no allies in the Catholic, nationalist parties. Their allies are in the DUP.
The Catholic politicians for the most part are adopting the line put out by the likes of Amnesty International which says there is no need for this conscience clause because no-one can be allowed to ‘discriminate’ on the basis of sexual orientation.
The case that has prompted this attempt to give proper protection to conscience is that of Ashers bakery.
The owners, who are Christians, declined to bake a cake with a pro-same-sex marriage slogan on it because it was against their beliefs.
They now find themselves being prosecuted by the Northern Ireland Equality Authority.
Of course, what Amnesty has entirely missed is the fact that Ashers did not refuse to bake the cake because of the sexual orientation of the person requesting it. If a gay person had asked for a cake without that slogan he would have got it and if a person who was not gay had asked for a cake with a pro-same-sex marriage slogan on it, he would have been refused too.
Why should a person be forced to use their services to back a political, ideological or moral position they fundamentally disagree with?
Imagine if a Catholic baker declined to bake a cake with the slogan ‘No Pope here’ and then found themselves being prosecuted by the authorities in the North? We would condemn the action as sectarian.
What is happening to Ashers bakery is that they are being subjected to prosecution by the State not in the name of religion, but in the name of a secular ideology that makes an absolute of a certain vision of ‘equality’. This is sectarianism by another name and the irony is that Amnesty International, established to defend conscience rights, is backing the State as it cracks down on Ashers.
Bear in mind that this action is taking place before the North has even permitted same-sex marriage. How much worse will things get if it permits it? How much worse will things get if gay marriage is permitted in the Republic?
Conscience rights will count for very little and we can expect zero support from our Catholic politicians.
This is why some Catholics in the North are starting to query who they should be voting for in General Election coming up in the UK in May.
They might not start voting for the likes of the DUP just yet, but the fact that this option is even being talked about shows how the nationalist parties in the North are beginning to alienate some of their Catholic voters.