Naomi Long should say when she rejected church on marriage

Firstly no church here has any privileged position in the running of the Province so her talk of separation of church and state is irrelevant.

She says she supports same-sex “civil marriage” as she seeks to isolate marriage in church as being in different category.

She misses the point entirely.

The issue is not the venue of the ceremony but whether the definition of marriage should be extended to two people of the same gender.

As a Presbyterian she knows that for centuries the church has clearly defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. WCF Chapter 24. At what stage of her journey did she change her view?

It is not the church which has created the inequality.

It is human physiology which creates the difference which no vote in the Assembly can alter.

Alliance Party is not in a position to lecture anyone on inclusion or tolerance in view of the fact that the party’s New Inquisition has excluded anyone who does not support the redefinition of marriage from holding public office. This means that their former deputy leader, the estimable and principled Seamus Close, would have been unable to run for election!

This type of discrimination is a form of religious apartheid from a party which hypocritically claims to be a party for all.

Mrs Long has shamefully supported a regressive policy of inequality, exclusion and discrimination against people whose only “crime” is to actually believe in the teachings of their faith.

R. Crawford, Dromore BT25