Gay Rights in Ireland

from: GCN Gay Ireland News & Entertainment

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IRISH TDs OPPOSE OIREACHTAS REPORT ON GAY MARRIAGE
25 January 2006 Isabel Ní Chuireáin

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TDs from Labour, Sinn Féin and the Green Party opposed the majority decision of the all-party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution not to recommend a referendum to give same sex couples and non-marital families the same status as marriage.

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Jan O'Sullivan of Labour said "the contribution that the traditional family makes should be acknowledged. However, we also believe that other family forms should be given constitutional protection too."

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"The Constitution should be amended so that it expressly stipulates the right of the State to recognise families not based on marriage and the right of the Oireachtas to legislate for the protection and benefit of members of such families."she added.

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Ciarán Cuffe of the Green Party said "it is wholly unacceptable that the committee should discriminate against same-sex couples" . He urged the government to proceed with the main recommendations of the report and called for a referendum to recognise the rights of children.

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"One third of all births in the state are outside of marriage. New forms of family life, not based on marriage, deserve respect and recognition in our Constitution." he continued.

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Arthur Morgan of Sinn Féin agreed: "Given the diversity of family formations which exist in the State today.. almost everyone knows somebody in a relationship other than traditional marriage. The State must move to recognise the status of these relationships."

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I'm hoping they get this referendum going, because I'll sure as hell be voting - this would be a really important step for Ireland because currently the Constitution only recognises heterosexual marraiges as proper families, to be protected under the law.I'm very proud of the TDs (from three separate parties that normally don't agree on much) who were prepared to speak out in favour of equal rights. I'm really hoping that more will follow suit and we can move towards something resembling gay marraiges here - or at least equal treatment of gay partnerships and other non-standard families.The Rock Hound

Em.I just realised that you wouldn't understand Irish government names, seeing as they're in Irish.A TD is a Teachtaí Dáil, equivalent to a British MP. The Oireachtas is the Parliament, consisting of Dáil Eireann (House of Representatives) and Seanad Eireann (the Senate).Sinn Féin is a nationalist party, mostly concerned with Northern Ireland - though they're getting more popular in the south as well these days. The Green Party and Labour are similar enough to the British parties of the same name as far as I know.

To be honest, I'm not sure. I'd say it's entirely possible that the amendment would go through, there are enough people who care about it.I mean, the divorce referendum went through, and I didn't think that had a hope in hell.

Normally it isn't a question of public opinion, but the thing is whenever there is any kind of change to the Irish constitution, it has to go to a referendum.Now, I personally dislike the constitution. It's full of quite a lot of unnecessary religious crap, but hey, it's not entirely surprising considering Ireland is a pillar of Catholicism and all. That aside, there's room for improvement in a few areas. The bit in question that would have to be changed in this case is as follows:

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The Family

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Article 41

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1. 1 The State recognises the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law.

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2 The State, therefore, guarantees to protect the Family in its constitution and authority, as the necessary basis of social order and as indispensable to the welfare of the Nation and the State.

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2. 1 In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.

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2 The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.

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3. 1 The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.

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2 A Court designated by law may grant a dissolution of marriage where, but only where, it is satisfied that

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i. at the date of the institution of the proceedings, the spouses have lived apart from one another for a period of, or periods amounting to, at least four years during the five years,

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ii. there is no reasonable prospect of a reconciliation between the spouses,

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iii. such provision as the Court considers proper having regard to the circumstances exists or will be made for the spouses, any children of either or both of them and any other person prescribed by law, and

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iv. any further conditions prescribed by law are complied with.

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3 No person whose marriage has been dissolved under the civil law of any other State but is a subsisting valid marriage under the law for the time being in force within the jurisdiction of the Government and Parliament established by this Constitution shall be capable of contracting a valid marriage within that jurisdiction during the lifetime of the other party to the marriage so dissolved.

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See? The bit in bold would have to be changed because by definition it excludes any form of family other than the usual man, woman, kids version - because the State is only recognising and protecting families based on marraige.If they changed "marraige" to "marraige or civil union", and changed the stuff about the woman to "parent who chooses to stay at home", then gay marraiges and single parents are included.

Oh, almost forgot - they'd have to ditch that bit about "marraige being the basis of the family" or change it to something like "marraige being the basis of many, but not all, families".

Funnily enough, I don't think that'll happen.No one really seems to care about the whole gay marraige thing over here. As far as I can tell, it's more about single parents and non-married couples - the majority of the Oireachtas think they shouldn't send it to a referendum because they don't think it'd be ratified, not because they're anti-gay. Come to think of it, I've yet to see any kind of gay-bashing coming from any Irish political source.The big problem with voting in Ireland is that people keep voting for a particular party even though said party has been shown to be corrupt/moronic/bad decision makers/whatever. It's like "I've voted Fianna Fail all my life and thats the way I'm always going to vote!" It's bloody irresponsible.But, you know, little steps. If there are TDs from 3 separate parties coming out and saying that it's not right and it should go to a referendum, that's a good start - it's indicative of what a part of the Irish population think, and I hope that part will get bigger as time goes on. It may be that in a few years the Oireachtas will decide that such a referendum will go through and will hold one then.