Editorial: MLAs need to get serious about their jobs and stop the performative nonsense

​In any parliament in the world, the primary role of its members is to scrutinise and understand the consequences of the laws they expect the rest of us to live by – but too often that is not what it is happening at Stormont.

​This week, MLAs debated legislation on banning “conversion practices” which could have profound implications for people’s lives – and fundamentally alter the relationship between children, their families and the criminal justice system.

One of the most contentious aspects of the bill was its attempt to bring the concept of gender identity into legislation. Yet remarkably, when DUP politicians attempted to questions the bill’s proposer Eóin Tennyson on how many genders there are – it was closed down by the deputy speaker Carál Ní Chuilín.

It was not the job of MLAs to be asking this, she ruled. That such a basic question cannot be asked shows what an entirely unserious place Stormont is at the moment.

Mr Tennyson’s sincerity in what he is trying to achieve was largely accepted across the house, but it was only on the unionist benches that serious questions were being asked about the impact it would have on people’s lives.

The Alliance MLA made efforts to explain why it was not as risky as his opponents said it was. Some of the behaviour from Sinn Fein, however, was simply not serious.

Emma Sheerin, furious that unionists kept asking questions about gender identity, accused them of “showing yourselves up as the bigots you are”. The DUP’s Phillip Brett said Sinn Fein did not speak for gay people, as they claimed.

“I am proud of the fact that there are members of the gay community who are members of the Democratic Unionist Party”, he said.

MLAs like Ms Sheerin need to engage seriously with the issues at hand, and stop such performative nonsense.