William Quill

It was only in November 2008, the morning after the US presidential election, that it properly and more clearly than before struck me that I was gay. Though I had engaged in low-level lobbying within the Progressive Democrats approaching the 2007 election on the lack of progress on a promised civil unions bill, it was partly on secular grounds because of my objection to the consultation between Michael McDowell, as Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, with Roman Catholic bishops in drafting legislation relating to gay people, and partly on the urging of my then girlfriend. And it was only after Proposition 8 in California was defeated that I paid much attention to it.

It was a few days later, on 8 November, I regretfully spoke and voted in favour of a motion to disband the Progressive Democrats, something that seemed a possibility from the results of the 2007 election on.

So in looking for a new party, I was more conscious than before of parties’ attitudes to gay rights. The release of Milk early 2009 was a reminder of the value of political activism and how being honest and open can change assumptions and perception, being the story of Harvey Milk, who was one of the first openly gay people elected to public office, and who helped defeat Proposition 6, which would have barred gay teachers.

Yet I joined Fine Gael because it is the party closest to me on the role of the state in spending and economic governance. This did not mean that my deeply held liberal principles were set aside. I remembered what the late Dr Garret FitzGerald said, “You don’t join a political party because you agree with them. That always struck me as a rather static view. You join a party because you can change it. It’s a more dynamic view of politics.” And he did change assumptions not just within Fine Gael, but in the country as a whole, and remains a political inspiration for me.

In December 2009, I went to Leinster House on the first day of the debate on the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Bill. The first response was from Charlie Flanagan, who as Fine Gael Spokesperson on Justice, Equality and Law Reform gave an outstanding speech, the best of the evening, in which he stepped beyond party policy to express his hope that full equality would not be far away, and reminded us what secularism has done for society.

It was then with a measure of hope that in July 2010, I proposed a motion at Young Fine Gael Summer School (where motions are consultative) with Trinity YFG to support allowing gay couples to marry. But this was very narrowly defeated, with a mere two votes in it. Of course I was disheartened, but I realized that I hadn’t given the time to something that to me seemed so obvious. And a rephrasing of what Milk said in the clip above formulated in my mind: a young gay centre-right political activist who all of a sudden realizes that they are gay; there are two options, move to Labour, or stay in Fine Gael and fight.

So I stayed on, was elected to the National Executive in November, and appointed Director of Policy. Many friends of mine outside the party found my involvement difficult to understand. I did feel that too often people did accentuate the negative, and assume a focus on social matters far greater than existed. The election result of last year was a time of hope and political renewal.

At the Summer School in July 2011, I proposed the same motion for Dublin South-East again at summer school, with Meadhbh. That time it got near universal support. It almost made me glad two people who would have voted for it the year before had turned up late.

Then this Saturday, on my last full day on the National Executive, a motion at Young Fine Gael Conference (where motions are binding as policy), proposed by Úna and Noel for DCU YFG, calling on the government to bring forward legislation allowing gay couples to adopt, was similarly passed with near universal support.

I am proud to have been an active part of the organization during this rapid change on this issue of personal importance to me. I was taken aback and very appreciative of the response to my comment on Facebook on this.

Indeed, the shift in public opinion here and in other countries in the last few short years has been remarkable. This has been both reflected and advanced by popular culture, and cheesy though it may seem, it was the words of this song, as performed by Chris Colfer, as Kurt in Glee, that went through my head before Summer School last year, “Some things I cannot change, but till I try, I’ll never know.”:

Discrimination in marriage in California has been ruled unconstitutional yet again. In June 2008, the California Supreme Court ruled in favour of equal marriage. This was overturned by an amendment to the California Supreme Court, Proposition 8, passed November 2008. Those couples had married in that period could stay married, but no further gay couples could marry. The ruling on the high-profile case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger (now Perry v. Brown), in August 2010 in the US Federal District of Northern California overturned Prop 8, as violating both the equal treatment and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. It was immediately appealed, and its effect stayed pending the ruling on the appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeal was announced today, confirming that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

So once again all couples can wed in California (constitutionally at least, I’m not sure if the decision has been given a stay on appeal). But on what grounds? The three court judge ruled by 2–1 that because Proposition 8 left gay couples with all the equivalent rights and responsibilities of marriage through domestic partnership, but without the word marriage, there was no rational basis presented by the proponents for the distinction (summary here, full ruling, which I’ve yet to even scan through here).

The decision appeals to the logic of Romer v. Evans, a 1996 ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States, authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, which overturned an amendment to the Colorado constitution forbidding anti-discrimination laws protecting gay and lesbian citizens. As Justice Kennedy is seen as the swing vote, this is seen to make it likely to upheld again if it comes before the Supreme Court.

But whatever of the political reality of it, there’s a strange logic that follows. If Proposition 8 had deprived gay couples of any aspect of marriage other than the name, of if California had not had decent domestic partnership, then the case for equality would have failed today in California. To give an analogy, let’s say these isles were US States. It would rule a ban on equal marriage in the United Kingdom as unconstitutional, but one in Ireland as constitutional. That’s because in the United Kingdom civil partnership is practically identical in legal terms to marriage, so there’s no reason not to grant the name, whereas here in Ireland there are several differences between the two. So is there an incentive for those who want to maintain a distinction in the words to leave out some token measure of rights that pertain to marriage too?

We’ll see what effect this has on the election. Republican front-runner Mitt Romney has already criticised the decision of “Today, unelected judges cast [who] aside the will of the people of California who voted to protect traditional marriage”. Will he be forced into making this a campaign issue? I really doubt there’s much political capital for him there if he does. And for President Barack Obama, the ruling is neatly in line with his stated view in 2008, that while not in favour of a general right of gay couples to marry, he did oppose Proposition 8 in California.

I had a letter published in this month’s issue of Gay Community News,

Dear Editor,

In his assertion that Glee perpetuates a stereotype, Dylan (Letters, Issue 265) betrays a prejudice of his own, in his case against effeminate gay men. Perhaps it’s time for a new awareness slogan, “Some gay men like musicals – get over it”. For someone who seems to be a keen viewer of Glee, Dylan ignored the fact that Kurt was passed over for the male lead in West Side Story by his boyfriend, Blaine. He also ignores how Kurt’s father in that episode encourages him to be himself, not to conform to the perception of what a real man is, and to assert his true self, “What is wrong with any of that? It’s who you are. I say, if they’re not writing movies and plays for performers like you, then you’ve got to start writing your own. C’mon man, you’re awesome. Write your own history.”

Glee portrays diversity between its gay, lesbian and bisexual characters, between Kurt, the more butch Blaine, the closeted bully Karofsky, Santana now coming out and Brittany almost oblivious to why others care if she’s with a boy or a girl.

Dylan and others should also remember why the older stereotype arose. In the past, those like Blaine or Karofsky found it easy to pass for straight, while someone like Kurt, who even another gay man describes as prancing, couldn’t help but stand out.

But it was because of their presence that the public at large couldn’t pretend that gay people didn’t exist.

Now that full legal equality is within sight, it would a remaining social injustice if we were to continue the claim that effeminate men are not real men.

Yours,

William Quill

This is not 2004. In that year, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in favour of allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry, the first US state to allow this. It was only a year after Lawrence v. Texas, in which the US Supreme Court overturned sodomy laws in 14 states. In that year’s presidential election, the Republican incumbent George W. Bush proposed a Federal Marriage Amendment to amend the US Constitution to define marriage as between a man and and a woman, prohibiting states from enacting laws to contrary effect. It would have been the second Amendment to restrict the freedoms of US citizens, the first being the 18th Amendment in 1919, introducing prohibition (repealed in 1933). President Bush’s Democratic opponent, John Kerry, a Senator from Massachusetts, supported civil unions, while opposing both equal marriage and any proposal to define marriage at a federal level. Referendums to amend state constitutions to define marriage as only between a man and a woman appeared on the ballot in a number of states in November 2004, driving up conservative turnout, and contributing to the vote of Bush against Kerry, in what was a close election.

But a lot has changed in those eight years on the issue of gay marriage. Then it seemed destined to be a nice feature of certain liberal enclaves, whether in the US or in Europe. Now it seems an inevitability, only a matter of time across most of the developed world. Last year, public tracking polling by Gallup showed for the first time that a majority of Americans supported legal gay marriage, with 53% in favour and 45% against. The figures in 2004 were 55% in favour, and 42% against. The figures in 2004 were 42% in favour and 55% against, and they remained steady till last year. An annual tracking poll should be reliable, but in case it looks too sudden to be credible, it was corroborated by similar figures from the Washington Post (53%) and CNN (51%).

Read more…

Coming more than 36 hours later, I’m not going to claim to present Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech on Tuesday on LGBT rights as news. It was a great speech though, and well worth watching if you’ve only read the text.

The important message from her speech is that she is not talking about any special rights for gay people, as Governor Rick Perry so wilfully misunderstands.
As Clinton says,

Some have suggested that gay rights and human rights are separate and distinct; but, in fact, they are one and the same. Now, of course, 60 years ago, the governments that drafted and passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were not thinking about how it applied to the LGBT community. They also weren’t thinking about how it applied to indigenous people or children or people with disabilities or other marginalized groups. Yet in the past 60 years, we have come to recognize that members of these groups are entitled to the full measure of dignity and rights, because, like all people, they share a common humanity.

This recognition did not occur all at once. It evolved over time. And as it did, we understood that we were honoring rights that people always had, rather than creating new or special rights for them. Like being a woman, like being a racial, religious, tribal, or ethnic minority, being LGBT does not make you less human. And that is why gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.

It is wrong to make legal distinctions, prohibitions against lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people because no one should be subject to any special exception from human rights. It is not about creating exceptions, but ending them. Culture and religion can be no excuse for an infringement on human rights.

As I posted on Facebook, she didn’t start being great on Tuesday. This speech consciously mirrors her speech in Beijing at the Fourth World Conference on Women. This is a speech should be read again now by all those inspired by her speech on Tuesday,

It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and for the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as separate from human rights.

These abuses have continued because, for too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words. But the voices of this conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loudly and clearly:

It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.

It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution for human greed — and the kinds of reasons that are used to justify this practice should no longer be tolerated.

It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire, and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.

It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.

It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes by their own relatives.

It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.

It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely — and the right to be heard.

The problems she refers to are unfortunately as alive today as they were 16 years ago, and we must continue to scrutinize our approaches to human rights issues around the world to ensure that we do not place the right to life and personal autonomy of any individual on a lower scale for any reason.

David Norris ended his campaign for president with dignity yesterday, a decision which is understandable at a personal level after the weekend. I did think it was the right thing for him to do, but I did feel for him as he found himself in that position.

Presidential campaigns are not easy for any candidate, as Brian Lenihan and Adi Roche found because of how their past actions were interpreted, or as Mary Robinson, Mary McAleese and Mary Banotti found simply because of who they were. A candidate should be prepared, however unreasonable and unjust it may seem, to have their actions during their public career scrutinized, if not those of their entire working life.

But was David Norris subject to extraordinary scrutiny because he was gay? He certainly encountered homophobia, from a councillor in my home town who said that he wouldn’t support David Norris because a man should have a wife, to the caller the Pat Kenny show felt worthy to entertain saying he had a problem with the idea that Norris might bring a man into the Áras as his partner. So yes, part of the extra questioning he went through was plain bigotry, and because something relating to those not close to the mean citizen form a good tabloid headline.

But just because he was under more scrutiny because he was gay, it doesn’t mean it was homophobic. It was inevitable because of his attempt to become the first openly gay elected head of state in modern times. We are still in a place in society where young gay people look for role models, where gay people are conscious how few others there are in public positions, so someone seeking such a position of prominence will receive extraordinary attention.

There was extraordinary euphoria about Norris’s candidacy in part because of the symbolism his election would evoke, as visualised by Jason O’Mahony in his mock-up Time cover. That was bound to evoke corresponding extraordinary skepticism, as people would seek to be sure that he was fully a good candidate in his own right, apart from the headline that would make it worthy of a Time cover, that he wasn’t being let away with something because it was too good a headline to miss. We had to be sure that the aim didn’t become electing a gay president whatever the cost.

With any of the candidates remaining, the only international coverage Ireland will get is possibly in the short snippets of The World this Week at the start of The Economist. They could have said anything during their political careers, and no one outside the country would care. Had David Norris been elected, with the increased global focus came a concern, if subconscious, of what would be in paragraph three of such a story (“His campaign, however, did not avoid controversy …”).

Is this fair. Probably not. A candidate should be judged on their own merits as a candidate, but when he had become the story of the campaign, this was never going to happen. In any case, even it the controversy would not have emerged without a vast right-wing Zionist homophobic conspiracy, we still had to deal with the facts of the case after they emerged.

I very much do not believe that the events of his campaign demonstrate that Irish politics is still a cold place for gay people. Perhaps the reverse, as he himself acknowledged yesterday. The new Dáil began with two openly gay TDs, Dominic Hannigan and John Lyons, as Maman Poulet alluded to this morning. This is a good sign. This got barely half a day’s coverage. This is also a good sign. Bigotry is not dead in Ireland, as Muireann O’Dwyer laid out excellently writing for Tea and Toast, but neither should we believe to think it is truly inhibiting.

I had been hesitant till now to comment here or much elsewhere on David Norris’s presidential campaign. I was never much excited by the prospect of him as president, but as this was as much because of his character than anything concrete, I felt this would be interpreted in partisan terms. He has been something of a cult figure in Trinity (as seen with his 36% vote among graduates in the recent Seanad elections) and among others I know but not necessarily someone I’d feel I want to engage in an argument about.

I have great respect for his long fight for the decriminalization of homosexuality in face of very conservative opinion of the time, and indeed gratitude that because of his challenge, I would not myself be classed as a criminal. But my hesitancy about Norris probably began when I read his Magill interview in 2002. He was at best careless with his words. Then 15, I found the idea of making excuses for “an older man introducing a younger man or boy to adult life”, talking in terms of his own desires at that age of “an older, attractive, mature man taking me under his wing, lovingly introducing me to sexual realities”, difficult to take. I was disappointed that this is all I was getting from gay public figures.
Read more…

This time last year, at the Young Fine Gael Summer School, I proposed the motion, “This Summer School supports allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry”. It was defeated, two votes short of a majority. Yesterday, now as YFG Director of Policy, I proposed the same motion, and it passed overwhelmingly with, I think, two votes against. This is what I said in the two minutes I had to speak,

Those of you at summer school last year, or that I’ve talked to since or last night on this, know that this is important to me.

For me, this is fundamentally about the hope that I might settle down one day into happily married life, hopefully in a lifelong relationship. The same reasons anyone wants to marry.

Studies on this, and just plain common sense, will tell you that those who are married in committed relationships live longer, healthier and happier lives. Of course having a constant, loving companion can be such a comfort in life, there for each other, for better for worse, in sickness and in health.

In voting in favour, you simply acknowledge that the care and love a couple show each other should be recognised in a way that they believe best reflects their commitment.

We’re now ten years since gay couples in a growing number of places around the world first had the opportunity to marry. How could allowing more people commit to each other send anything but a positive message about the value of marriage?

As to children, don’t forget that there are currently children in Ireland being raised by gay couples; it would give them too added security and protection if their parents could marry, such as in a situation if anything was to happen to their birth parent, where under current law their other parent would currently be treated as a stranger.

There is civil partnership. But these beneficial effects have so much a firmer backing with the authority and tradition of marriage. Further, justice requires that conditions of people’s lives determined by government be provided equally for all.

This has proved successful in other countries; it will enhance the comfort and security of gay couples, it will make gay children and teenagers growing up in Ireland feel more included in society; it will provide Constitutional support too to children being raised by gay couples, and it will give peace of mind to the parents and wider family of gay people. With all this, I really think there is no social benefit in preventing me and others from marrying.

Thank you.

It was followed by an excellent speech from Maeve Howe, chair of Dublin South-East YFG, who stressed that this is a human rights issue, not an LGBT issue, and then by an informed discussion from the floor.

There were other motions this weekend which I was proud of, which I will summarize tomorrow. There have been some great moments since I became active in the party in autumn 2009. But the support the motion received yesterday, such a reversal in twelve months, was one of the most satisfying for me at a very personal level, and something I was proud to play a part in.

Here below is a list of all motions in the general policy section of Summer School: Read more…

I noticed a poster on the DART today for a planned March for Marriage by LGBT Noise on 14 August. On the one hand, it’s good to see organizations investing energy into reminding people that civil partnership falls short of equality. On the other, I was amazed at the lack of political nuance by the group in the slogans it chose to place on the poster.

According to a well-publicized poll in The Irish Times last year, 67 per cent of people feel gay couples should be allowed to marry. Despite this high number, it shouldn’t be taken for granted that such a measure would pass if it has to go to a referendum as the same poll showed a figure of only 46 per cent in favour of gay couples being given the right to adopt children. Those campaigning against would undoubtedly focus on this aspect, as happened in California in 2008 and in Maine in 2009.

So that figure of 67 is soft by at least 20 per cent. Political messaging should be geared then towards convincing those on the middle rather than rallying those who are already on side. Yet LGBT Noise decided to veer towards sensationalist slogans. Of the four on the ad, only one is a convincing message:

• Break traditions, not hearts
  Not the idea as I see it. Better surely to talk of allowing gay couples take part in a tradition, rather than breaking it?
• There’s nothing civil about inequality
  Cool
• Jesus had 2 Dads and He turned out fine
  Where to start with this one? Complete and wilful misunderstanding of the Biblical account, and who is going to be won over with this level of flippancy about the Bible?
• Can’t even get married in Vegas!
  This debate is in Ireland, not Nevada. And with the less than holy connotations Vegas brings to mind, this works because?

I have criticised LGBT Noise before for tying themselves with a trade union march. Of course, an organization is free to do as they wish, but as one of the few organized primarily on this issue, they have at least some responsibility to present a case that will win over those who are uncertain where they should stand on the issue.

I will pay Richard Waghorne credit for taking the time to respond to so many of the responses, my own included, to his column in the Irish Daily Mail on Tuesday against same-sex marriage (though as a pointer for his relatively new blog, it is blogging etiquette to link back to articles quoted).

There is a recurring theme in his responses which I would like to respond further to. He takes any admission of a benefit of marriage to children as a concession that it has no further primary purpose, and that any other purpose to marriage can only undermine the benefit to children.

I would put the case that with this it is in fact Richard who is attempting to redefine marriage by presenting a far narrower definition than we are commonly accustomed to thinking of. Outside of this particular debate, it is not asserted that marriage exists solely for the benefit of children. Had that been the case, one could imagine a scenario where none of the legal recognition for marriage kicked in until the birth of a couple’s first child.

Richard addressed the question of infertile couples (in rebuttal 3). One of his arguments was that it would be intrusive, suggesting that if there were an non-intrusive way of determining fertility, there would be less of an issue in denying such couples the right to marry. Read more…

With a front-page banner headline like “I’m gay but I’m against same sex marriages”, on the day of the first civil partnerships in Ireland (congratulations to the couples!), Richard Waghorne was bound to attract some attention for himself. While the case is one I have argued against before here, his article is as good an opportunity as any to highlight what I believe are some mistaken assumptions.

First off, his point that it should be irrelevant to a debate of this nature whether one is gay.

I am not a big believer in people making arguments on the back of who or what they happen to be. When I last made the case in these pages against gay marriage, about a year ago, I didn’t feel the need to mention that I am gay myself. Arguments stand on their own two feet, or don’t, but not on the strength of who happens to be making them.

It is wrong to think that life experiences are irrelevant to a social issue of this sort. For most gay people, myself included, it is a grievance to a greater or lesser extent, that we cannot hope to get married in this country; how is it an irrelevant fact that this is at least tempered by those such as Richard Waghorne who do not take it as such? This is not a theoretical issue, it matters because of the people involved. Imagine a situation where no gay person wanted to marry, but the idea was proposed. It would surely then be relevant for Richard to mention his sexuality. Why less so now?

Richard proceeds to argue that as marriage is recognized because of the protection it provides for children, it is selfish of gay couples to look for it.

The support and status that marriage entails is not a societal bonus for falling in love and agreeing to make a relationship lasting. That is not, of course, to say that love and romance are not an important part of marriage. But they are not the reason it has special status. If romance were the reason for supporting marriage, there would be no grounds for differentiating which relationships should be included and which should not. But that is not and never has been the nature of marriage.

Marriage is vital as a framework within which children can be brought up by a man and woman. Not all marriages, of course, involve child-raising. And there are also, for that matter, same-sex couples already raising children. But the reality is that marriages tend towards child-raising and same-sex partnerships do not.

The substance of my criticisms are two-fold, and covered by his side comment acknowledging the exceptions to his general rule.

While raising children is an important reason to recognize marriage, it is not the only one. We also recognize the importance personal bonds are to people. The obvious example is of an elderly couple, who are past child-bearing age, and who have no desire to adopt. No one begrudges them the right to marry. We feel instinctively that by making the commitment to be with each other in all circumstances, they will be the better for it. They have that emotional security of the other’s bond that they will be there for each other. There are benefits not just to the couple, but to society at large, to people not being isolated.

Indeed, the marital vows themselves emphasize only this part of marriage:

…. will you take …. to be your husband?
Will you love him, comfort him,
honour and care for him,
and, forsaking all others,
be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?

It seems wilful denial then to consign this aspect of the commitment to a side issue.

On the question then of children, it is certainly relevant to the discussion that there are same-sex couples raising children. This can happen because of adoption, artificial insemination or a child from a previous relationship. And it will happen, parental instincts exist among all to some degree, regardless of sexuality. At present in Irish law, only one of the parents can be officially recognized as such, and the other treated in law as a stranger. This would change as of right if gay couples could marry.

Even were the Civil Partnership Act amended to acknowledge this and take account for these situations, the children would undoubtedly be better off if their parents could marry. Conservatives like Richard Waghorne are quick to trumpet the benefits of marriage in general, that it increases stability in the home, which is good for children. On the whole, I would agree with them. But this should not become any less true for children raised by gay couples. Does Richard believe a couple raising a child is no less likely to dissolve their relationship if they are in a civil partnership than if they were married? I find it difficult to see how he can consistently hold this view.

The reality is that the distinction is part of a legacy of centuries-old discrimination against gay people. Had we continued from classical times to the present with no discrimination, different terminology might not be an issue. Given the possibility of questions, it would mean so much more to such children that they could respond to any question from curious friends by simply saying, “My parents are married”.

So I differ with Richard’s premise, that marriage is near exclusively about children, and hold that even if it were, children would be better off with marriage equality. I also find it odd that ten years after the first gay couples married in the Netherlands, he feels no need to back his claims with evidence of harm from there or other countries and territories. I’ll finish in questioning his overall critique, that gay couples would fundamentally change the institution of marriage, by quoting John Corvino from last month,

So why do conservatives think that this tiny minority will undermine the norms of the vast majority, rather than vice versa?

It’s hard to escape the answer: because that view fits their preconceived objections better, evidence and common sense be damned.

Edit: Do read as well an excellent response from Conor Prendergast, signed “Proud son of two loving mums”.

Iowa is one of five US states where gay and lesbian couples can marry, since a ruling of the Iowa State Supreme Court in 2009. As in most of these, it is still not firmly settled law, and is for the moment under revision.

Below is a speech by Zach Wahls, a 19-year-old University of Iowa student speaking about his family during a public forum on House Joint Resolution 6 in the Iowa House of Representatives, which seeks to end recognition of marriage. In the words of Tom G. Palmer on Facebook, “A truly remarkable speech. The young man who gives it would have been a success in the Roman Senate, or the British Parliament, or the U.S. Senate. His moms must be very proud.” Those opposed to marriage equality must be able to present an identifiable harm strong enough to counter the benefits it brings to gay couples and their families. It’s not good enough to say that it is good policy to support male/female marriage as if that is diminished by also supporting gay marriage.

As an aside, Tom Palmer, from whom I got this link, and is gay himself, is one of the libertarian scholars I most admire because of how he puts his beliefs into practice. As well being a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, he spends much of his time travelling to developing countries, creating links between those seeking greater freedom. A reminder that what little grievances we grudge in western countries, real liberalism should have an international outlook, where individuals’ daily security and survival are at stake.

His blog and Twitter feed are worth following for those who like links on the free market and cats.

I am occasionally questioned by those outside the party why I support Fine Gael given its relative conservative position on some issues, particularly on the question of allowing gay couples to get married. It is a reasonable question but it assumes parties are monolithic and static in policy terms.

People can fail to appreciate that Fine Gael has long managed to maintain within it different points of view. While the strengths of different wings ebb and flow, the party does contain a strong diversity of opinion. In the 1960s we had the strong conservatism of Gerard Sweetman, the moderate fiscal conservatism of James Dillon and the social democracy of Declan Costello. Throughout Garret FitzGerald’s leadership, liberals and conservatives worked together, with clearly defined differences in many Dublin constituencies.

So while I strongly disagree with the views expressed by Lucinda Creighton over the weekend when she stated that she did not support gay marriage because she believed the purpose of marriage was for children, I do not feel disheartened. The party was right to state that this was her personal point of view, not something she was saying in her capacity as junior spokesperson on equality. While the party has not supported marriage equality, it hasn’t opposed it either. There has been no attempt, for example, to make any commitment as official Fine Gael policy to oppose equality in this matter. There is no agenda, as some have tried to imagine, to reverse civil partnership rights; the Fine Gael manifesto commits the party to completing the elements of the civil partnership process stalled by the dissolution of the Dáil.

I feel there are some, particularly online, who like to target Fine Gael for comments such as those by Lucinda while ignoring the opposite point of view from members of the party. I saw no reference in the criticisms in the last few days to the speech by Charlie Flanagan on the first day of the debate on the Civil Partnership Bill in December 2009. Speaking as Justice Spokesperson, giving the first response from the party, he talked of the advances in a liberal society, brought a human element to the debate, and expressed a wish that civil partnership would be a step towards equality. I have extracted portions of this speech here before, but crucially Flanagan expressed his view, “While many welcome [the civil partnership bill], others believe it does not go far enough. To those people I would say that change is incremental and I hope that full equality is not far away.”

This was his own personal opinion here again, just as it was Lucinda’s on the weekend, yet few jumped to equate his words with Fine Gael policy. Even within Lucinda’s own constituency, there is diversity within the party on this question. Eoghan Murphy, also standing for Fine Gael in Dublin South-East,  affirmed in answer to an online query that he believes gay couples should be allowed to marry.

In 2004, before the issue was seriously on the agenda in any form, and before other parties have drafted their proposals, Sen. Sheila Terry and Alan Shatter published a comprehensive policy on civil partnerships. The party deserves some credit for that and cannot be characterized as regressive. Realistically, a change in the law to end to end the current discrimination will require the support of a broad-based party like Fine Gael. The day Charlie Flanagan made the above speech, I was in the public gallery, and heard a member of the Labour Party there sneer that whatever Flanagan might think, that wasn’t party policy. But to get real movement on an issue like this, it has got to the stage where it needs to be pressed from within.

I do not think it is good enough that gay people like myself can not aspire to get married, while I could in a fair few other European countries. I believe this change would make gay children growing up feel they would be accepted, normalize their relationships and reduce bullying. Gay couples would truly become part of each others’ families, as in-laws, integrating them into the familiar structures we all relate to. Children raised by gay couples would have greater security. And the couple would have the comfort and dignity of a happily married life. Fine Gael matches most closely my political outlook in broad terms, and it makes most sense for me then to make this case from within the party.

Included in the Labour Party manifesto is a commitment to a referendum to allow same-sex marriage (or to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry, as I would rather phrase it). I welcome support from any party for such a change and I would put what time and resources I could into campaigning for a Yes vote in the case of such a referendum. But I think it is possibly counter-productive of Labour to  presume that the best way of achieving this is to a commitment to a referendum.

Yes, the High Court ruled against Katharine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan, a couple who were married in Canada and who have been seeking since 2006 to have their marriage recognized here. But as the Supreme Court has yet to judge on this, we don’t have a definitive ruling that it would be unconstitutional to allow this. Representing the couple were Gerard Hogan, a Progressive Democrat, and Ivana Bacik of Labour (some parallel perhaps to the political divergence between Olson and Boies in California, who had represented Bush and Gore in 2000).

For Labour to call for a referendum now means that they accept that the proposal would contravene either the wording in Article 41.1.2° “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” or in Article 41.3.1° “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”. Labour are proposing what would probably be an unseemly amendment with an explicit exception. What would be better would be to try convince people that rather being an attack on the institution, allowing gay couples to marry would strengthen Marriage, by promoting it as the end of stable relationships for all, and for the protection of those children being raised by gay parents.

Read more…

From members of both government parties, I found something depressing about the stances they adopted on the Wildlife Bill. On the part of the Greens, given all they have agreed to since going into government, was this so much more important than taking a stance against NAMA or the continued aid to Anglo-Irish, or other such issues, to take the example of cystic fibrosis mentioned by Prof. Brian Lucey in a letter to Saturday’s Times? Equally, on the part of backbench Fianna Fáil TDs, what made protecting this hunt so much more of a cause to speak up and question government policy than many other issues, as Vincent Browne argued yesterday in the same paper. It is because of their priorities on issues like this that I would feel that the Greens are not the ideal coalition partner during an economic, fiscal and banking crisis.

But because of a bill will pass its final vote in the Dáil later today, despite all that, at the next general election, I will cast my fourth preference, after the likely three Fine Gael candidates, for the Green Party, such as it will remain in Wicklow. After reading David Quinn in the Independent on Friday and Breda O’Brien in the Times on Saturday, I warmed more to the Greens. There are many other issues which I would disagree with them on, such as on GM food, touched on by Quinn. But on certain cultural issues, I stand where they do. What sort of mentality is to describe John Gormley’s of the Roman Catholic Church’s contribution to the debate on civil partnership as “kicking an institution when it is down”, as O’Brien does? Badly phrased on Gormley’s part, a church has as much right as I do to comment in the public sphere, but while the institution still exercises the influence on curriculum in more than 90% of primary schools, and while those in the hierarchy who knew of crimes committed by priests against children still hold positions of influence, that institution is not down.

The Green Party have secured the Civil Partnership Bill, which should become law later this year. It is by no means a perfect bill; not only does it seem a little backward to introduce only civil partnership when to date seven other European countries have allowed gay couples to marry, but it has considerably fewer guarantees and protections than the Civil Partnership Act which the United Kingdom introduced in 2005. I am not convinced that this is the best we could have got constitutionally, but I could believe that it might be the best that could have been achieved politically. Without the Green Party in this government, even these protections in this bill would not have been introduced this year, and I will give that credit where it is due.