HOMOSEXUAL acts will be legal in Northern Ireland at the age of 17 after MPs voted decisively to lower the age of consent.
HOMOSEXUAL acts will be legal in Northern Ireland at the age of 17 after MPs voted decisively to lower the age of consent.
The move brings homosexual relations into line with the minimum age for legalised heterosexual activity in the province _ a year higher than in the rest of the UK.
DUP leader Rev Ian Paisley and UUP MP William Thompson _ the only Northern Ireland MPs participating _ voted against the key amendment to lower the age from 18 to 16 in the Commons last night.
MPs were allowed to vote according to conscience.
The amendment to the Crime and Disorder Bill, tabled by Labour MP Ann Keen, was approved by 336 to 129, a majority of 207.
Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam, who is on leave, and two other NIO ministers, Adam Ingram and Tony Worthington, did not vote.
Political Development Minister Paul Murphy and Ulster- born Labour backbencher Kate Hoey were among those who backed the successful amendment.
Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Andrew Mackay also voted for a lower age, but his deputy Malcolm Moss opposed change.
The decision now faces a fresh challenge in the Lords from Tory peers and bishops.
But gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said they would press ahead to win other reforms of the law.
'This vote is just the start of a long, unfinished struggle to end the second class status of lesbians and gay men.'Mrs Keen told the Commons: 'It cannot be the role of the state to work out people's sexuality for them. It is for individuals to work it out for themselves.
'The purpose of the criminal law in this area should not be to put police into bedrooms, nor to coerce gay men to be heterosexual.'Mrs Keen was recently reunited with the son she gave up for adoption at birth when she was a teenager.
The discovery that he was gay motivated her to seek to change the law.
The outcome of the vote was hailed by hundreds of gay rights campaigners, who gathered at Westminster to celebrate.
It brings Britain into line with that of the rest of the European Union, bar Austria.
MPs rejected a separate amendment aimed at protecting youngsters from predatory adults.
Cardinal Basil Hume, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, echoed a warning by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, that to lower age of consent might send out 'the wrong messages'.