DERRY singer SOAK – real name Bridie Monds Watson – has applauded Ireland’s backing of gay marriage in the weekend referendum.
And during a gig in Norwich on Sunday, she called on her legion of fans to give Ireland a warm round of applause for the historic decision.
But she is still perplexed as why legislators in the North don’t row in behind Ireland and give gay men and lesbian women the same rights.
It remains illegal for the LGBT community get officially marry.
Instead, they can only have civil partnerships.
The DUP and other religious fundamentalists, including the Catholic Church, have opposed same sex marriage.
SOAK told BBC Radio 1’s Newbeat programme today:”Ten minutes down the road, I can get married legally and where I live, I can’t,” said the 19-year-old who was born in Belfast and but raised in Derry.
“It is ridiculous, it is a human right, it is ridiculous that it is not just a given.”
Although over the moon with the ‘Yes’ vote, she hope it will accelerate a decision in the North.
“It’s so crazy, since it had been announced (that was going to be a referendum), I was thinking will it pass? won’t it?” she explained.
“I was proper stressy and getting closer to the time I was like, ‘I really don’t know’ and then this week I thought ‘yeah it’s going to go through, I believe in it’.”
She heard the news of Ireland’s historic vote from her mum back home in Derry.
“She gave me a call yesterday on my way to Dortmund in Germany,” she told us.
“She was crying saying ‘Oh My God it happened’ and I was like ‘no way’.
“So history was made, it’s incredible. Now all that needs to happen is Northern Ireland needs to wise up a bit.”
She said everyone she knows had been “proper fighting” for this outcome but thinks it is a long way off for her country.
SOAK thought the Irish had much to do with people voting and realising their vote was valued.
On legalising gay marriage in the North, she told Newsbeat: “I think it is going to take a while.
“I hope that now down south has passed it, then Northern Ireland will be like ‘oh everywhere else but us, maybe we should accept it’.”
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