Sir Ian McKellen calls for equal marriage in Northern Ireland

Sir Ian McKellen has urged Northern Ireland to “catch up with the rest of the UK” and legalise equal marriage.

The veteran actor and LGBT campaigner has lent his voice to growing calls for equality in the country which after last month’s historic ‘Yes’ vote in Ireland remains the only nation in the British Isles not to allow same-sex marriage.

Appearing on BBC Breakfast this morning (June 18), McKellen said of the Irish referendum: “Whenever the vote came through, that wasn’t the big turning point.

“The turning point had been already happening and this was confirmation that Ireland had changed.

“That leads onto the future very well indeed.

“I hope, as a result, Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, will catch up with the rest of us now and bring in same-gender marriage because it’s rather unseemly that that little bit of, corner of our country, doesn’t have quite as liberal laws as the rest.”

Equal marriage was rejected by the Northern Ireland Assembly for a fourth time in April, following continued opposition from the Democratic Unionist Party. A pro-equality rally took place in the capital, Belfast, on Saturday (June 13), attracting a crowd of thousands.

McKellen – who helped found LGBT rights group Stonewall as a response to the Thatcher government’s controversial Section 28 measure – recently described seeing equal marriage introduced under a Tory government “astonishing”.

The 76-year-old Lord of the Rings star, who came out as a response to Section 28 in 1989, also admitted recently that he will “always regret not coming out sooner”.

Five countries worldwide have introduced equal marriage in 2015 alone – the most recent being Mexico, where it was effectively legalised after the country’s Supreme Court ruled any state bans on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional.

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