In Northern Ireland this has been a marching season shrouded in controversy. We have seen nationalist politicians rush to condemn that which they have endorsed both last year and at other times, namely what they call "the threat of violence" - something they deem acceptable from nationalist residents, but which they condemn when they believe others to have employed it.

We have seen Roman Catholic clergy urge Protestants to behave in a Christian way, to "turn the other cheek" or "go the second mile", while those same individuals steadfastly refuse to do so.

We have seen so-called evangelical groups such as ECONI (Evangelical Contribution on Northern Ireland) instructing Protestants that their faith, its elements and expressed worship, is unimportant in its details and should be the subject of negotiation.

We have seen Lord Molyneaux used by party grandees and Orange hierarchy to tighten the leash on rank-and-file Orangemen, resulting in the cutting adrift of the brethren from Ballynafeigh, Londonderry and elsewhere. This is a policy which has pulled the ground from under the Apprentice Boys of Derry leaving them banned and re-routed this year. It has also sown the seeds of conflict and mayhem, which the Portadown brethren and others will have to face next year.

All the while, the Orange leadership lurches from one disaster and crisis to another, leaving the rank and file frustrated, hurt, ignored and slighted. Little wonder, then, that the present Grand Master will forever be known as "somer" Saulters.

Yet all is not lost. There is an answer.

We in the Independent Loyal Orange Institution held our Twelfth demonstration in Ballycastle, Co Antrim this year. This is a town boasting something like an 80 per cent nationalist/Roman Catholic population. However, we paraded our full route (accompanied by a number of brethren from the main Orange Order, from as far afield as Londonderry, Lurgan, and Omagh, as well as several places much closer to home) without having entered into any negotiations of any kind with any residents' group, their representatives, or spokesmen.

Furthermore, the local Sinn Fein representative, in attempting to manufacture a protest, found he was ignored by the vast majority of townspeople (many of whom came out to watch the parade and are to be commended for their tolerance in doing so), leaving him to gather a handful of what appeared to be schoolchildren around him.

In such a tense, volatile, life-threatening atmosphere, how could this happen? For the truth's sake which dwelleth in us and shall be with us forever (2 John, v.2) I believe there are two reasons. First: there are nationalists and there are nationalists. The very fact that our parade proceeded as it did, in a predominantly nationalist/Roman Catholic town, fully demonstrates that there is nothing intrinsically offensive about Orangeism, and that those militant nationalist groupings who object must now be identified for what they really are - cohorts of Sinn Fein, who are offended not by Orangeism, but by the presence of Protestants, of "planters", on this island.

Second, there are Orangemen and there are Orangemen. The Independent Loyal Orange Institution has no official links with any political party. We are, as our resolutions for this year state, "an institution wholly Protestant", which has, as its primary aim, the defence and promotion of our Biblical Protestant faith and heritage, free from interference or influence from any political party seeking its own advancement and advantage. Our watchwords are "Protestantism, not politics"; "principles, not party"; "measures, not men". Our membership of the institution serves to give expression to this, as do its activities.

The time has now surely come for all nationalist residents to extend to others freedom of expression and the right to hold to a system of beliefs different from their own, even if they disagree with elements thereof. The time has surely come for nationalists across the province to follow the Ballycastle model evidenced on the Twelfth.

It must now also be the time for brethren in the main Orange Order to demand that its leadership be removed, along with the directly appointed place-men and time-servers, together with the political link with the Ulster Unionist Party, a link which has served the party very well and the Orange Order disastrously.

The time must surely have come when Protestants, who value their faith and heritage, should consider joining with those who, like the Independent Loyal Orange Institution, will defend, maintain, and uphold this without fear or favour, and without negotiating in a foolish and mistaken attempt to appease the enemies of that which we hold most dear.

Protestant faith and heritage, being Bible-based, cannot be negotiated or bartered away. The time has come for those in authority to acknowledge its validity and accept its right to full expression in the way the residents of Ballycastle did on the glorious Twelfth.

This must be the bottom line for society. Either that or we will all face the same dilemma again when the "concerned residents" groups of today, together with their republican watch-dogs, move on from Orange parades to the Boys' Brigades, to open-air services, Remembrance Day services, and to challenging the very existence of Protestant places of worship in "their" areas (as inevitably they will). Society must protect the rights of Orangemen, in order to protect itself.

David McConaghie is secretary of the religious affairs committee of the Independent Loyal Orange Institution.