Orange Order praises council for rejecting parade ban proposals

The Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland has commended the “common sense approach” of the Highland Council in rejecting a motion that would have stopped sectarian marches in Inverness.

At yesterday’s meeting of Highland Council under agenda item 12, the Apprentice Boys of Derry and the Orange Order was explicitly named by Councillor Chris Ballance of the Scottish Green Party.

Mr Ballance asked fellow councillors to agree to ask officers to “examine means” to ban any future Apprentice Boys or Orange Order marches in the Highlands, in light of a 5,000-strong petition to halt the annual Inverness march earlier this year.

Councillors rejected the motion, in what the Protestant group described as “upholding the Orange Order’s right to demonstrate” under law.

The petition in Inverness was launched after a group in Stonehaven successfully campaigned against a march in the Aberdeenshire town.

As a religious group, it believes it has protected characteristics under European Human Rights legislation, similar to those available to transgender, Gypsy/ Traveller people or other religious groups.

In a statement from David Walters, the Orange Order Lodge of Scotland executive officer, he said: “Glaringly, for far too long, the poison of anti-Protestantism in our society has been swept under the carpet in Scotland.”

He said the Orange Order was an “organisation consisting exclusively of Protestants of the Christian faith with an avowed love of the gospel of Christ”.

Mr Walters said the council motion was a “blatant attempt to place a permanent and outright prohibition on our parades, as a basic effort to ban the Holy Bible, in what is increasingly becoming secular attacks on our organisation”.

He said public parades “display our unswerving allegiance to the monarchy” as at the head of each march is an open Bible and crown.

“Therefore, banning our parades is effectively banning the Holy Bible from being carried in open procession,” he continued.

The Orange Order believe parades:

● are intrinsically linked to our culture and community and lead to worship

● are a commemoration of those who gave their lives in war

● celebrate the annual festivities of the Twelfth of July

Arguing that thousands of Scots identify with the Orange Order, he said: “If that is the ‘crime’ in some people’s eyes – then we unequivocally make no apology for that.”

Mr Ballance said: “Christianity should be about love, not military victories.”

He said the motion at the council had not been carried after the convener of the meeting spoke against it, saying there was no action to be taken.

Orangemen parade on the streets of Belfast.