The 2025 Belfast Pride parade through Belfast city centre. Photograph by Declan Roughan, Press Eye
The Department responsible for LGBTQIA+ policy in the north has failed to issue any message of support during Pride celebrations under the current minister.
This year marks the 35th anniversary of Belfast Pride, an annual event which celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community and calls for equality and solidarity in the city and beyond.
However, the Department, led by DUP Minister, Gordon Lyons, looks set to follow the trend of the last two years in releasing no messages about the event.
A review by The Detail of the Department for Communities' official social media accounts and press releases found no statements marking Belfast Pride or Pride Month in the three years since Mr Lyons was appointed Communities minister.
The absence of any messages referencing the LGBTQIA+ community or Pride comes despite the department maintaining an active social media presence.
The department regularly promotes community funding programmes, sporting events and its America250 campaign.
Analysis of the departments’ Facebook account in particular identified 45 posts focused on the America250 campaign, Mr Lyon’s visit to America and Ulster-American history.
In response to questions surrounding the Department for Communities social media use, a spokesperson said:
“Our social media output broadly reflects Ministerial priorities, current Departmental campaigns, projects and programmes.”
By comparison, the two previous Communities ministers Carál Ní Chuilín and Deirdre Hargey, both Sinn Féin, posted messages of support for the LGBTQIA+ community and Belfast Pride through the department’s social media and press channels.
For example, in 2020, the department posted a video of Ms Ni Chuilín saying “as Minister for Communities I have the lead responsibility for the Executive for LGBTQ policy and I'm absolutely delighted to be joining the celebrations of the 30th anniversary of Pride.”
The following year the department published a video of Ms Hargey wishing "all of our LGBTQI+ family and friends an enjoyable Pride season.”
Further, the Department for Communities previously promoted messages highlighting Pride when there was no minister in place, during the 2017-2020 Stormont collapse, and again in 2022-2024.
A press release from July 2023 stated that "The Department for Communities promotes a message of equality and inclusion as PRIDE 2023 festivals across the region get underway to celebrate our LGBTQI+ communities.”
The current Minister’s party has been a vocal critic of homosexuality throughout the years, with instances of DUP politicians previously describing homosexuality as an “abomination”, openly opposed equal marriage and resisted reforms including lifting the ban on gay men donating blood, falling behind the rest of the UK.
Disgraced former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson attempted to apologise in 2021 for the party’s previous “hurtful comments” towards the LGBTQIA+ community.
More recently DUP councillor Colin Kennedy was given a three-month suspension due to comments about supporters of the “LGBTQIA alphabet soup agenda” being the same “people who are now seeking to defend Hamas”.
The Northern Ireland Local Government Commissioner for Standards (LGCS) deemed these comments, made at a Ards and North Down Borough Council in 2023, to have breached the councillors' code of conduct and were “personally hurtful”.
The Department for Communities was previously criticised when it emerged last year that the LGBTQIA+ charity the Rainbow Project had struggled to secure meetings with the Minister for Communities Gordon Lyons and other DUP ministers. However, charity has since confirmed that they have now met with Minister Lyons and his officials “a number of times”.
A spokesperson on behalf of Minister Lyons said that:
“Minister Lyons is committed to serving every person and every community in Northern Ireland fairly and respectfully. He is willing to work constructively with people regardless of their sexuality or background and focuses on delivering opportunities, support and better outcomes for everyone”.
The lack of any public message from the department also comes amid wider debate over official participation in Pride events in Northern Ireland.
Earlier this year the Northern Ireland civil service confirmed it would not officially take part in Pride after “current legal and case law context” challenged its involvement. DUP assembly member Jonathan Buckley agreed with the NICS decisions, saying that Pride was an “overtly political event”.