The Northern Ireland Assembly has rejected same-sex marriage legislation by an outright majority for the fourth time. (See last week’s Prayer Alert) Today MLAs voted 49 to 47 against a motion calling for the redefinition of marriage. There were three abstentions. Traditional marriage supporters had warned that the motion sought to limit the free speech of Christians. Callum Webster, spokesman for The Christian Institute, said: ‘This is now the fourth time in three years this motion has been defeated. We’re thankful to those MLAs who have resisted this constant and co-ordinated pressure from activists to redefine marriage.’ He had previously highlighted that a sentence supporting ‘freedom of religion’ in last year’s motion was deleted from this year’s version. Mr Webster said this indicated that supporters of gay marriage only want to allow free speech within church services.