Madam, - Now that the previously unimaginable joint administration of the DUP and Sinn Féin is up and running, the time has come for a truce with the gay community, and for its presence in Northern Ireland to be tolerated, if not accepted.
A quarter of a century ago, on October 15th, 1982, Westminster finally legislated an order in council which, following the the 1981 decision by the European Court of Human Rights, decriminalised homosexuality in Northern Ireland.
The DUP is now in power with republicans and still Ian Paisley Jnr rails against homosexuals and equal rights. Meanwhile Sinn Féin persists in the view that one of its major progenitors, Roger Casement, who helped to arm Oglaigh na hÉireann in 1914 and 1916, could not be gay and certainly did not write the "Black Diaries".
A truce with minimum accords can surely now be considered.
Dr Paisley and his party should accept that gays are and will remain decriminalised and have now to be treated on an equal footing under the law with others in society. This would end the political war waged unceasingly against homosexuality since the Save Ulster from Sodomy campaign of 30 years ago. Discussions on politico-legal matters could then be held with gay representatives.
Similarly, Sinn Féin and its president, Gerry Adams, should reverse his previously expressed view that Casement's diaries were forged, and accept that it is possible for a Republican martyr (or politician) to be gay, and to have written a record of his homosexual encounters. The view, held almost as a last article of the old faith, that the British forged the gay diary entries can then join the IRA in history.
I do not ask, nor would I expect, Free Presbyterians to change their religious views on the matter of homosexuality, or for republicans to abandon the separatist faith that Casement both enunciated and espoused. However, we gays have fought a good fight, and have ended our course with emancipation and respect. All we ask is proper recognition of that from our new government. - Yours, etc,
JEFFREY DUDGEON, Belfast 9.