Two-thirds of Northern Ireland support same-sex marriage, study finds

A new report has found that two-thirds of people in Northern Ireland support same-sex marriage.

The research, which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and published by Queen’s University Belfast, was designed to discover what people think about the impact of Brexit on Northern Ireland.

As well as asking respondents what their attitudes to Brexit were, the researchers also asked about issues that are “hampering inter-party agreement to resurrect the Northern Ireland Executive”, including same-sex marriage.

The study found that overall, 63% of respondents were in favour of introducing marriage for same-sex couples. This fell to 50.5% for Protestants, but rose to 75% among Catholics.

“There is a majority support in the population as a whole and a bare concurrent majority among Catholic and Protestant communities for the introduction of same-sex marriage,” the report reads.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that continues to block same-sex marriage.

Northern Ireland Assembly members have voted five times on whether Northern Ireland should legalise same-sex marriage so far, with the most recent vote in November 2015 being in favour of it being passed into law.

However, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) vetoed it using a petition of concern, a voting mechanism designed to protect the rights of minorities in Northern Ireland.

Same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales in March 2014, and shortly followed in Scotland in December 2014.

Last year, a Sky Data poll found that 76% of Northern Ireland are in favor of marriage equality, with just 18% actively opposing it. Those were the highest numbers ever recorded in support of same-sex marriage being legalized in the country.