THE Orange Order has condemned a decision to ban a march that would pass St Alphonsus Church – where a priest was attacked during a Battle of the Boyne commemoration in July.
City leaders in Glasgow chose to stop a march from passing the church, in Calton, where priest Canon Tom White was attacked.
But they refused to rule out future parades being able to march past the religious building on Stevenson Street.
The decision to prevent this Saturday's march came amid concerns over potential rioting after Police Scotland claimed hundreds of protesters could show up to defend the church.
A parade will still go ahead on Saturday, but the Order has been told they’ll have to take an alternative route.
County Grand Master of Glasgow, Eddie McGonnell said: “This is denying the parade from going westwards into the city so it’s an exclusion zone.
“We take punitive measures against anyone who misbehaves in general but particularly during a parade. "We will expel someone from the institution if they act in an unchristian manner.”
A spokesman for the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland added: “We are extremely concerned at the decision today to re-route a parade and effectively ban us from certain streets.
“It is discrimination in its purest form. Glasgow City Council has now established the first ‘no-go zones’ in Glasgow based purely on your religion.
“We offered numerous concessions, including moving the parade to a different day, continued discussion and dialogue, and we identified the times of services at St Alphonsus Church and offered to move the time of the parade to ensure that we avoided those services.
All of this was rejected.
“We were offered no concessions or negotiations in return.
“Instead we now have entire streets in Glasgow closed off at the request of one religion over another.”
The comments came despite members of the public processions committee insisting that there will be no blanket ban on parades going past the church.
Committee chair Ken Andrew said: “There is no question of us trying to impose any permanent ban. We have no intention of trying to stop this happening in future.
“I think the issue is not with the members of the march.
"It’s more likely to be those who followed the march.”
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