Marriage equality came while Stormont was silent
A cunning deadline from London opened marriage to all in Northern Ireland. Stormont came back two days too late.
On 13 January 2020, a gap closed in Northern Ireland that had long seemed like a wall. That Monday, regulations came into force that opened marriage to same-sex couples. England, Wales and Scotland had had marriage equality since 2014. Northern Ireland was the last part of the United Kingdom to refuse.
There had been attempts. In the regional assembly at Stormont, a wafer-thin majority for opening marriage emerged for the first time in 2015. The Democratic Unionist Party, however, blocked the decision with a veto mechanism, the so-called "petition of concern". After that, things went quiet. From 2017, Northern Ireland's devolved government was frozen altogether because of a dispute between the main parties.
In the summer of 2019, Westminster stepped in. The Labour MP Conor McGinn, who grew up in Northern Ireland himself, added an amendment to a rather technical bill on forming a government. The idea was as simple as it was cunning: if Stormont was not back up and running by 21 October 2019, London would have to introduce marriage equality by regulation. The House of Commons approved it by a large majority. The deadline passed, and the mechanism was set in motion.
The twist came shortly before the deadline. After three years of deadlock, the parties reached agreement, and Stormont resumed work at the weekend. Two days later, the new rules applied anyway. They could no longer be stopped.
At the same time, different-sex couples were also allowed to enter civil partnerships for the first time. For same-sex couples, the wait for the banns now began. In February 2020, Robyn Peoples and Sharni Edwards became the first same-sex couple in Northern Ireland to marry. Amnesty International spoke of a historic day for equality and human rights.