Gay Marriage Reaches the Isle of Man!

[Sheilbh]

Three cheers for the gay marriage that ended the Isle of Man's dark history of bigotry
Helen Pidd
Helen Pidd
When Luke Carine was born on the Isle of Man 26 years ago, gay sex was punishable by life imprisonment. On Saturday, he married Zak Tomlinson in the island's first-ever same-sex marriage ceremony

Married men ... Luke Carine and Zak Tomlinson, of the Isle of Man.
Sunday 31 July 2016 18.30 BST

When Luke Carine treated Zak Tomlinson to a KFC in Douglas for their first date in 2010, he had no idea that six years later, they would be making history. Yesterday, wearing matching grey suits and blue cravats, trailed by four men-maids, the opthalmic scientists became the first same-sex couple to get married on the Isle of Man. Pronounced husband and husband, they began married life by walking down the aisle to Etta James's At Last and on to a reception that included a bucking bronco.

With equal marriage now on the statute books in many western countries, two loved-up young men getting hitched on a little windswept island in the Irish Sea might not raise many eyebrows. But when 26-year-old Carine was born on the Isle of Man, gay sex was punishable by life imprisonment. It wasn't until 1992 that homosexuality was decriminalised, after a campaign by a few tenacious local politicians and the queer pressure group Outrage!

Local activist Alan Shea bore the brunt of the hatred and bigotry that reigned on the island in those days. In 1991, backed by Outrage!, he dressed up as a concentration camp inmate to attend Tynwald Day, a Manx national holiday when ordinary citizens are allowed to present a "petition for redress" to Tynwald, the island's parliament. He customised a pair of striped Marks & Spencer pyjamas with the pink triangle used in the Nazi camps to mark out gay people, felt-tipped with the Isle of Man's three-legged symbol. Below that he printed a "prisoner number", which was actually the government's phone number.


Pioneer ... Alan Shea in his concentration camp uniform on Tynwald Day, 1991.

A video taken by Outrage! showed soldiers hissing at Shea as he walked to Tynwald Hill to argue that he should not face life in jail just for having sex with his partner, Stephen Moore. On camera, a furious man denounced Shea and his friends as "bum-blasters" as local children looked on with interest. Shea and Moore showed me the footage last year when I went to visit them in their Douglas townhouse, recalling how, just a few decades ago, undercover police would monitor everyone who came and went from their home. The pyjamas are now housed in the Manx museum as a historical artefact, they told me proudly.

We discussed a plan being promoted by the island's chief minister, Allan Bell, to introduce equal marriage. Civil partnerships had been legal on the Isle of Man since 2011 – Shea and Moore had taken the plunge in 2012 with a big party on Douglas seafront – but they were sceptical that marriage would be open to all any time soon. Happily, they were wrong. Bell, a quietly determined 69-year-old, who announced his retirement from politics last week, decided to make the legalisation of same-sex marriage his legacy. A member of the House of Keys, the Manx equivalent of the House of Commons, since 1984, he and a few others have spent their political careers fighting for LGBT rights.

Sitting in his grand office in Douglas, Bell told me about the "dark days" in which elected politicians made the kind of statements that would be seen as objectionable today. Take the remarks by Mr RE Quine, representing the Ayre constituency, during a debate in 1987 to discuss "provisions to legalise homosexual acts between consenting males in private".

"I will not give such questionable and such objectionable practices a veneer of legality and respectability," spluttered Quine, "for it would be the thin edge of the wedge, and I am sure that it will lead to a charter for wimps and perverts to further infect society." Another member, Mr Kermode, told a cautionary tale from a trip to London with his wife, "where, sat in a picture house in the main centre of London, two fellows were necking behind me".

Bell was in the chamber that day. History records him remarking that: "There [can] be few more awesome sights in life than bigotry, ignorance and hypocrisy united in moral outrage."

When I visited the island 28 years later, everyone I spoke to knew that Bell was gay, but told me he would never admit it in public. They were wrong. I asked him if he would like to be able to get married. First, he dodged the question, saying everyone who loved their partner should have the opportunity to marry if they wanted. He looked uncomfortable, and I told him so. Wouldn't it be progressive if he could talk openly about his own relationship? "People know the situation very clearly. People know that I'm gay. I've never made a secret of it, but no one has ever asked me," he said quietly. When the article came out it made headlines on the island: "Chief minister comes out to UK newspaper."

Chatting to Carine before his wedding last week, Tomlinson said he was thankful to Bell and Shea for making the island's first same-sex marriage possible. (Another couple, Marc and Alan Steffan-Cowell, both 26, became the first pair to convert their civil partnership to a marriage, last Monday, but Carine and Tomlinson celebrated the island's first marriage ceremony.)

Just six years previously, Carine was still dating girls when Tomlinson, then 16, kept on turning up at the petrol station where he worked, "stalking me, basically". Three months after their KFC dinner, Carine came out to friends and family, who, he said, showed the couple nothing but support. It boggled his mind to think that their love would have been illegal in his own lifetime, and yet there they would be on Saturday, having their first dance to Paolo Nutini's Loving You.

[Jaron]

Its raining men!

[Richard Hakluyt]

I'd never heard the term "bum-blasters" before. Unfortunately I can't imagine a situation where it would be appropriate to use it 

[Zanza]

Why did the UK never incorporate Man and other crown dependencies? It seems to be a fairly centralistic state otherwise with devolution a recent phenomenon.

[Sheilbh]

Why did the UK never incorporate Man and other crown dependencies? It seems to be a fairly centralistic state otherwise with devolution a recent phenomenon.

Honestly I think it's that we've never had a revolution, or an occupation, or a crisis of sufficient magnitude that we've had to actually rationalise everything. Because it's worked and it's never collapsed, been utterly discredited or destroyed the system just keeps going as it is. Practically I'm not sure anyone would really see any reason to do it - Malta had a referendum in the 50s and voted to join the UK, but the UK rejected them for example which I still think was a huge mistake - in the dependancies or in the mainland.

It's always been a union of nations who've chosen to come together rather than state with independent authority to centralise. I think it's more of a muddled state with contradictory strands. But in theory Scotland and Ireland chose political union (in practice they were bribed), we can't just abolish the Manx (oldest continual sitting Parliament in the world) or Jersey governments without their permission.

So the Scottish Parliament abolished itself (as did the Irish one) but despite that an independent legal system was maintained in Scotland as a condition of union. An English qualified lawyer couldn't practice in Scotland and, given that Scotland's system is partially civil law, would probably find it easier to practice in Ireland or Australia in some ways.

Similarly yes the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament are new, but there was a Parliament in Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1973 (mainly devoted to repressing Catholics) when powers were brought to Westminster. But even then there are separate laws (often made in Westminster) that only affect Northern Ireland. For example abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland, they don't yet have gay marriage (due to the DUP) and homosexuality was only decriminalised in the 80s.

The centralising impulse is very odd but very deep in the UK. It's always weird in that we like decentralisation in theory but are very attached to the idea of a universal service of quality everywhere and 'postcode lotteries' are a regular complaint. And there's always been an ebb and flow of power from Westminster to local governments and back over time - Maggie Thatcher was actually the great centraliser because central government pays for a lot of council services from the Treasury and she felt if central government is paying for it it should have a lot more control over how it's spent.

Edit: Basically I don't think we've ever had a 'constitutional moment' so it's just a case of muddling through. Hence the House of Lords reforms for example.

[Admiral Yi]

I'd never heard the term "bum-blasters" before. Unfortunately I can't imagine a situation where it would be appropriate to use it 

New to me to.

If put to the test, how many slurs for gays do you think you could come up with?

[Admiral Yi]

I can only come up with nine.  Thought I could do better

fag
homo
queer
poof
butt pirate
chutney chaser
turd burglar
rump ranger
pillow biter

oh yeah, and mud shark for ten.

[sbr]

I've always been partial to goo gobbler when I really needed one.

[Martinus]

Pretty ironic given the name of the island.

Also, most of the insults you list, Yi, are sex-act specific. There are gays who do not engage in anal sex, for example.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Also, most of the insults you list, Yi, are sex-act specific. There are gays who do not engage in anal sex, for example.

Presumably the homophobes use different terms for people like that, "bum blaster manque" perhaps 

[Richard Hakluyt]

Anyway, mustn't hijack the thread; I had no idea that the situation in Man had improved so quickly, the legalisation was not that long ago.

[Martinus]

Anyway, mustn't hijack the thread; I had no idea that the situation in Man had improved so quickly, the legalisation was not that long ago.

Was the law actually enforced? It sounds so barbaric.

Edit: I suppose no self respecting gay person wanted to stay on that island for long, though.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The population is only 80k or so anyway, not exactly the bright lights though there are big tax advantages for the wealthy.

Apparently the anti-gay sex laws in the UK were most vigorously prosecuted in the post-WW2 period leading up to their abolition. Perhaps a consequence of the general intrusiveness into people's private lives generated by the war economy which remains characteristic of the modern UK.

[Solmyr]

[alfred russel]

Anyway, mustn't hijack the thread; I had no idea that the situation in Man had improved so quickly, the legalisation was not that long ago.

If you want a bigger change, where I live not only was gay sex illegal in this millennium, but so was extra marital heterosexual sex (as we were told during college orientation). Now gay marriage is legal.