William Quill

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.

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%).

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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.

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Today in California, one of the most significant debate on whether gay and lesbian couples should have equal rights to marriage is coming to a conclusion. This is the federal case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, which is at the stage of closing statements from both teams, which is hoping to overturn Proposition 8, which passed an amendment to the Californian constitution banning gays and lesbians from marrying under the Californian Constitution. This was passed on 4 November 2008, the same date Barack Obama was elected president.

When I first heard of the case last summer was being taken at a federal level, I was a little wary. I felt that given this would eventually be appealed to the Supreme Court, and that given the delicate balance of the Supreme Court, it was likely that Anthony Kennedy, considered the swing voter, would ensure at least 5-4 against the plaintiffs, and set back the case of marriage equality for a decade or so. Many of the groups who had campaigned against Prop 8 felt similarly.

Now, after the close of hearings,  I’m more optimistic about the benefits of the case. It made news because it brought to together the conservative Ted Olson and the liberal David Boies, who had been on opposing sides in Bush v. Gore in 2000, jointly representing the plaintiffs, two couples who had failed to get married during the period where it was possible for them in 2008. They were backed by the newly formed American Foundation for Equal Rights, which had on its board John Podesta, former Clinton White Chief of Staff and President of the Center for American Progress, and Robert Levy, President of the Cato Institute, one of the leading libertarian think-tanks.

Considering the proceedings of the court to date, I would not be surprised if the case was ruled in the plaintiffs’ favour, given the weak evidence and reliance on research from anti-gay activists like George Rekers who were over-compensating for their own repressed homosexuality. But even if it were to fail, and to fail again on appeal to the Ninth Circuit, good will come from the nature of the evidence presented.

If it does fail, it will probably not be opposition’s case that allowing any couple to marry would undermine the state’s interest in encouraging marriage for the benefit of children, or that the institution of marriage in society would in some way be weakened. If it fails, it will most likely be because of a judgement that as the people believed there was a rational basis for denying marriage rights, the court is not in a position to overrule them.

The benefits of the case, whatever the outcome, is threefold. On the one hand, it has provided the most thorough setting in which the arguments of both sides have been scrutinized, and the fault lines and weaknesses highlighted. Whatever the next forum for this debate, it now must take place at a more informed level. Secondly, the symbolic effect of the legal team and its backers matters. The right of gay couples to marry is being seen less and less as a matter of left against right, of liberals against conservatives. For Levy and Podesta to co-author an op-ed in the “Marriage equality for all couples”, will make more American start to question their preconceptions on the issue. As would Ted Olson article in Newsweek earlier this years, “The conservative case for gay marriage”. Finally, the lives of the four plaintiffs will seem familiar in their ordinariness to many: Kris Perry and Sandy Stier together ten years and raising four boys, Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo nine years, all in very conventional careers.

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I will give credit to Brenda Power for agreeing to give an interview to Gay Community News, having invoked anger from many gay people with here opinion piece in The Sunday Times last year, “You can’t trample over the wedding cake and eat it”. However, I find fundamental flaws in some of her arguments against allowing gay people become parents.

For example, she says that, “if there is an unhappiness in your life that you are trying to fill by acquiring a child, then you should really think about your motivations”. The interviewer rightly picks her up on this, that for no more than anyone else, gay people want to raise families because it is a natural human desire, rather than to fill a void in their lives.

Something which I think the interviewer let pass, and needs to addressed in this argument, is the idea that a child should have a mother and a father so that they have two role models. There is no clear reason given why these two role models should be of opposite sex. Growing up, role models are important for children for their character formation, but not ultimately for their ideas of sexual and gender identity. Any two people will have different characteristics and traits, to give the children they are raising guidance and example. The values children learn from their parents, from personal integrity to respect for others are not exclusively male or female.

Of course, Sigmund Freud considered gender identity to be a product of the relationships we have with our parents, but in this much he has mostly been discredited. That the children of single parents generally grow up perfectly balanced indicate that the lack of a mother or of a father do not per se affect child development. This is not deny that children in single-parent families might find themselves with more problems, but this is not a rule, and there is no reason to think that this is because of the lack of a particular sex in one of their parents, rather than the time their parents can devote to them. That perfectly many stable heterosexual couples have gay or transgendered children should further lead us to question the idea that having a mother and a father is important for children as role models.

In a recent article “Sins of Admission” in Commonweal, a American lesbian writes of her experience, as a Roman Catholic, where her local parish priest that there would be no question but that she could send the two children she had adopted with her partner to the parish school. She writes of how she had read of the plight of orphans, and how her motives in seeking to adopt them are considered suspect because of her sexuality.

This will sound hopelessly lefty, but the truth of the matter is that at the age of thirty-three I sat one Sunday morning reading the New York Times in a coffee shop a block away from the Newman Center where I had just been to Mass. The Magazine cover piece was “What Will Become of Africa’s AIDS Orphans?” Alone at my table, I murmured, “I could take one.” I read the piece through until the end and had the feeling that I was living the first day of the rest of my life. My partner and I had dated and maintained separate households for four years, but were set to begin our committed life together in a few months, and we had talked enough about adoption for me to know that she was open to it. We fished out the Times article from my files nearly two years later, contacted the agency mentioned in the piece, and — after much soul-searching and research and home studies and whatnot — we eventually welcomed two small boys to our family.

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On Wednesday, the Cato Institute, a US libertarian think-tank, hosted a talk, “Is There a Place for Gay People in Conservatism and Conservative Politics?”, with  Nick Herbert, Conservative MP and Shadow Environment Secretary, Andrew Sullivan, blogger with The Atlantic, and Maggie Gallagher, President of the National Organization for Marriage.

Though I’m fond of Sullivan’s arguments and can understand his perspective, he can seem a little angry at times, even if justifiably so. In any case, Nick Herbert’s speech (audio here) was certainly the highlight of the event, laying out a vision of the Conservative Party that would treat sexuality as a completely unexceptional in how it governs. He talked of how there could be more openly gay Conservative than Labour MPs after the upcoming general election and how allowing gay people to enter an institution such as marriage fitted in nicely to a conservative vision. He finished his speech strongly:

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Earlier today, I commented on John McGuirk’s piece, Shut Up, Marriage Hypocrites!! and think it worth writing a few words on the conservative case for allowing gay couples to marry. One way of looking at this is an analogy with the conservative approach to the question of whether multiculturalism or integration is the best approach for dealing with immigrant communities. Conservatives argue that the same rules and customs should exist for all. They would point to the danger of encouraging people to form separate identities, and that in the eyes of the state no special treatment should be granted to sections of the communities, treating people on individual merit. They oppose identity politics, saying that no woman should be promoted just because she is a woman and that the Congressional Black Caucus is racist.

Of course, while I could understand such expressions in the abstract, and believe that while individuals have rights, groups do not, in most of those cases identity politics grew out of a specific denial by a conservative establishment to a group of the rights accorded with others. Conservatives would not have had to deal with a feminist movement had they been less reticent about granting the vote and barring married women from the civil service and positive discrimination in employment would never have been an issue without the history of slavery, colonialism and racism. This does not give free reign to those who organize politically of behalf of certain groups, nor do I hold with all their claims (I believe, for example, that the membership of Portmarnock Golf Club is its own concern).

Would conservatives rather gay people could aspire to this...

But if conservatives are in earnest about seeking to end separate rules for groups of people, they should favour marriage rather than civil partnership for gay couples. If society treats a lesbian or gay man as they do anyone else, I am nearly certain that we would see a slow diminishing of the popularity of gay pride parades.

Catholic morality recognizes the existence of homosexuals, but believes that it is a burden that should be borne through a celibate life. However unrealistic what it asks of straight people in matters of private behaviour is, this stance is infinitely more so. Those more enlightened churches who have realized that their moral guidance should not exclude a minority should be commended. If some conservatives have a feeling that gay people are more promiscuous, this could perhaps be because of the absence of the stabilizing institution of marriage.

Civil partnership does resemble marriage and could provide something of that effect. But the resentment caused by introducing a similar institution has caused a recent surge among gay people for full equal access to marriage. By admitting that gay relationships merit recognition, but not marriage, the law is making separate laws for situations it clearly acknowledges are equivalent.

... or to this?

I also do not understand the claim that this is an attack on the institution of marriage. Apparently, according to the ruling of the KAL case, a marriage between a lesbian couple cannot be recognized because of the Constitutional provision, in Article 41.3.1, that “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”. Yet surely establishing an institution meant to resemble marriage, with the claim that these rights are just as good as the real things, does more to damage marriage than allowing more people who wish to marry to do so.

In this way, marriage is something conservatives should see as a desirable option for gay couples, and to be promoted, rather than something to be grudgingly accepted as inevitable when it happens. Instead of simply waiting for society to be ready for this moment, they should argue the merits of this institution they so believe in.

I’d also recommend “The moral and constitutional case for a right to gay marriage,” by Robert A. Levy, chairman of the Cato Institute (h/t: Tom G. Palmer).

The Dáil is today beginning debate on the Civil Partnership Bill, which would allow gay couples to register their partnerships. This is, I suppose, better than nothing, but it is not good enough. There would have been a time when this would have been acceptable, but not now in 2009, where mindsets and appreciation of the issues have changed.

Many years ago, as I recounted in a debate recently, gay people weren’t calling for marriage. They had found themselves cast off and rejected from society, and felt no choice but to create their own community. With the outbreak of the AIDS virus, people in general could no longer ignore the fact that many of their family, friends and colleagues were gay, and gay people themselves felt a desire to be integrated and accepted in the community as much as anyone else. This is a stylised version of events, but it was particularly in the last twenty years that the campaign for true equality took off.

True equality demands the right of gay couples to marry. If the state is to acknowledge the relationships of couples, it should not discriminate on the basis of the sex of the two partners. By acknowledging that gay couples merit recognition, but only in the form of civil partnership, the state is stating that they believe the love between a man and a woman is superior to that between two men or two women.

So what do we hear from those who oppose marriage equality? They claim that civil partnership grants all the rights of marriage, so what more would we want. Even if it did, the discrimination would exist in the refusal to grant the word, and particularly because of the constitutional recognition of marriage. What’s more, the Bill grants no recognition to the children of gay couples. There are cases now, more pertinent in the case of lesbian couples, where a child from a previous relationship is being raised by a couple. If the natural mother were to die, the surviving mother would have no legal rights to the child.

There has been the claim particularly promoted in recent years that marriage is not about couples at all, it is about children. Children are a natural part of the relationship between a man and a woman, but people generally don’t marry for children. I don’t mean in the case of unmarried mothers, where the father is still very much part of the family. In such cases, I believe marriage should be promoted, or at least not disincentivized, by the state. I mean that in cases where there are no children, a couple who do get married do so primarily for love, while they might look forward to raising children. This is obviously the case for those who for medical reasons can’t have children of their own, or particularly elderly couples. Even those who see marriage’s primary function to provide for children, acknowledge these exceptions, so why cannot they simply extend that privilege to gay couples? Those considering the welfare of children should also give a moment’s thought to the many gay children, for whom the normalization of gay relationships would lessen their adolescent anxiety, that they could have the same hopes for married family life as others, and reduce the likelihood of their being bullied in school.

Over time, new rights are discovered to exist as natural rights. Nothing in law and society is set in stone, and our views of social norms change slowly in line with evidence over time. The fact that Éamon de Valera had only the marriage between a man and a woman in mind when he wrote Article 41 of the Constitution of Ireland is not how law should be judged. A nice example of how law changed from what those who drafted it had in mind is how the Supreme Court of the United States decided in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 by 9-0 to desegregate schools on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment, ending the farce of separate but equal, despite the fact that those who drafted that Amendment in 1868 would clearly not have anticipated such a ruling. On the issue of marriage equality, the scientific understanding of homosexuality has changed over the past century, with the consensus now that it is a normal and immutable condition, however rare, rather than a psychiatric condition as a result of childhood experiences, as expostulated by Sigmund Freud. Now, as gay couples desire the comfort, stability, recognition and security of marriage as much as many others, there is no compelling reason it should not be granted.

If nowhere in the world was marriage between gay couples in place, it would still be no justification for not legislating for it here. But given that Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Spain and Sweden have dropped any requirement that a married couple be of opposite sex, the Irish government should ask why the situation here is so different. Religious views should not be considered when drafting legislation in a republic, but it’s nice to be able to point to Catholic Belgium and Catholic Spain in that list. And of course, it was the most heavily Irish part of the United States, Massachusetts, that gay couples first received marriage rights.

In 2006, Anne Colley, a solicitor and former Progressive Democrat TD, delivered a report (pdf) to the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Michael McDowell, on the best way to tackle discrimination for same-sex couples, and she found that only way to deal with question fairly would be to grant gay couple full and equal rights to marry. To Minister McDowell’s discredit, he sidelined the report, proposing only domestic partnership, which would grant no more recognition to gay couples than two siblings, and perhaps even two friends, who were living together in a financially dependent situation. It was from then, in part as a disappointed party member, that I realized how important it was that there should be full rights to marry.

Now we are presented with this bill. I believe it is only a matter of time before full marriage rights are achieved, there will only be so long this country can hold out, but I would far rather that happened today than several years from now. For my own part, I presume without thinking that I will get married, especially seeing how much it is taken for granted in the aforementioned countries and certain US states. I certainly have no desire for civil partnership. But there are many gay couples far older than me, for whom any benefit or recognition would be a great peace of mind. For this reason, I hope the Bill passes, in as strong a form as possible. But equally, I am glad to see the many gay activists protesting against the deficiencies of the bill. And from its enactment, it will hopefully be only a matter of time before it is clear that there is really no natural difference in fact between the love of any two people, and that the discrimination lessened but emphasized in this Bill will end.

This Tuesday, the voters of Maine repealed the decision of their legislature to allow gay couples to marry by voting Yes to Proposition 1. This is a disappointing decision, but not just because of the principles of the case. Those interested in politics might take sides in elections and issues in other countries, but in most cases on a small scale, it’s only a matter of preference, rather a belief in the effect it will have on them. But with an issue like this, the development in other countries matters here in Ireland and elsewhere. I think it’s inevitable that at some point, whether in five or thirty years, that there will be no restrictions on gay couples marrying. But the more other countries and states there are allow this, the sooner it will happen. We tend to catch up a little late on certain issues here after they have become a trend elsewhere.

As things stand, The Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Spain, South Africa, Norway and Sweden all allow gay couples to marry, with the change in law occurring variously since 2001. In the United States, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Iowa and New Hampshire do. The most significant of these is Iowa, outside of the traditionally more liberal states of New England. But in all cases where it has been put directly to the people, the electorate have opposed equality.

Personally, I dislike the idea of deciding people’s rights by a vote of the majority. But it is still perhaps time to stop and realize that however much this might be seen in terms of rights and equality, there are large numbers of people for whom it does not make sense that marriage should be anything other than a union between a man and a woman, however dictionaries might now define it. It’s difficult to know what it will take to change people’s mind on this, or how long it will take. But the political approach should take this into account.

What needs to be addressed is the question of how this affects children. The Yes to One campaign in Maine used an interview with a couple from Massachusetts, which had previously been used successfully by the Yes to Eight campaign in California, in which their son found out about homosexuality through a fairy tale read in class.

While I wonder about whether young boys would have any interest in reading lovey-dovey stories about princes and princesses, that would be my only reason to be cautious about a teacher reading such a story in class. Ultimately speaking, yes, if gay couples can marry, it would have to be mentioned in schools. Not in any orchestrated, “Now we’re going to talk about gay people” way, just as something that exists in society. Increasingly children will hear of prominent gay figures mentioned in the media, possibly referring to their husband or wife, while not referring to any big gay-specific issue. If a child were to ask his teacher about this, and is told, “Yes, they’re married”, they would probably just go back and play with their friends and not give it much thought other than that, where if the teacher were to say “I’m not allowed talk to you about that”, they would inevitably be intrigued. Where equality exists in law, there is no real reason to prohibit discussion about it. As to their son, chances are he won’t turn out to be gay, and if he does, something his teacher read to him in second grade will not have been the cause. So some of this problem, and of opposition to allowing gay couples to marry in general, is still due to the nature-nurture confusion about the issue.

Speaking of the defeat of Proposition 1, I would have to agree with those such as Andrew Sullivan who laid some of the blame for the result with President Barack Obama. During his campaign for presidency, he stated clearly speaking to Pastor Rick Warren that he believes “marriage is a union between a man and a woman”, and that he further believes that it is a sacred because of its religious origins.

Opponents of marriage for gay couples have used that quote on every occasion since, and it is gold dust from their point of view. It allows those who see themselves as moderate or liberal in many respects to oppose marriage equality, given that the man dubbed the most liberal President ever (though that is mostly due to his economic positions) feels that way. He did oppose Prop 8 in California, albeit it from the classical conservative stare decisis perspective. But some of that may have simply been political, to speak on both sides of the issue during the campaign. He claimed that he would be a fierce advocate for gay rights, that he would repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (prohibiting gays from serving openly in the army, which led to the dismissal of an Arabic translator earlier this year) and the Defense of Marriage Act (prohibiting the recognition at a federal level of gay unions as marriage), but he has failed to show any signs of movement on either. In this, he is letting down a group of Americans whose activists don’t feel they can turn elsewhere politically for support.