The row over Lisburn City Council banning gay ceremonies has deepened with a councillor calling the decision "pathetic" and reporting the matter to the Equality Commission.

According to the Belfast Telegraph, SDLP councillor Patricia Lewsley brought the matter up during the council’s monthly meeting.

She believes that the ban would breach the equality rights of gay and lesbian couples wishing to host a ceremony in the room where civil marriages are traditionally held.

"The Cherry Room is used for many other reasons as well as hosting heterosexual marriage ceremonies,” Lewsley told the Belfast Telegraph.

"A member of the gay community can come along and use the same room to attend a meeting, be a guest at another wedding or to host something like a catering function.

"But yet they are then banned from hosting a civil partnership ceremony there."

The motion by Lisburn Borough Council, in County Antrim, proposed that same-sex civil partnership registrations should "be not afforded the same recognition" as a civil marriage ceremony.

It also proposed that the council's wedding room, the Cherry Room, should not be used for civil partnership registrations as that was for heterosexual couples only.

Same-sex couples would be allowed to take place in the registrar's office.

Seamus Close, the Alliance Party councillor who proposed the original motion, has dismissed the controversy saying there was "nothing discriminatory about it."

However, the Alliance party has reminded all its elected representatives of "their duties both under the civil partnership legislation but also the wider equality duties", and said that they would meet their Lisburn councillors to "resolve this matter".

Lisburn DUP Mayor Jonathan Craig told the Belfast Telegraph he backed the decision and that the council had been angered by a motion in the House of Commons calling for action against Lisburn council for "not offering ceremonies for civil partnerships".

Bromley Council, in Kent, has also banned gay couples from holding ceremonies. But, after a threat of legal action from the Mayor of London and a planned protest march, it has agreed to “review its position” in regards to the provision of civil ceremonies for gay couples.

The Civil Partnership Bill will be introduced on 5 December 2005 when same-sex couples can register their interest to wed. There is then a period of 15 days before the official ceremony can take place, which means the first gay weddings in Britain will be on 21 December