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Civil Partnership Bill, another milestone on road to civil marriage for all

Issued : Wednesday 27 January, 2010

While the Bill before the House does not give equality for same sex couples it marks another milestone on the road to equal access to civil marriage for all citizens.

Ireland is slowly coming of age as a pluralist and egalitarian society. The proclamation of 1916 raised the flag of the Republic with such a rousing assertion of liberty in all its facets. The Democratic Programme of the first Dáil endorsed the principles of the Proclamation.

However, the dreadful bitterness of the Civil War, the harsh reality of economic ruin and the militancy of the Catholic Church triumphant quickly stifled the joy of republican ideals proclaimed in 1916.

It is time to look at the commemoration of the centenary of the 1916 Proclamation in six years time not with commemorative monuments and parades but with a determination to deliver on its proclamation of the Irish Republic. Has the great slogan of the era “Up the Republic” been delivered on? If not, what is the body of work that has to be done to enable this generation to sign off on what a previous generation started with such great aplomb? The task is daunting.

We have neglected our children over the decades since they were given special protection in the Proclamation.

Church and State, the designated protectors of the young were permitted to abuse them with impunity. The Ferns Report, the Ryan Report and the Murphy Report paint a shocking picture of depravity, neglect, institutionalisation and abuse of the most vulnerable children of the new Republic for half a century by those who were public pillars of that Republic.

Children’s rights were never recorded in the Constitution. The least we can now do is to redress that omission by introducing a Constitutional amendment to establish a clear set of childrens’ and young peoples’ rights.

The Constitution is likewise silent on the rights of citizens whose sexual orientation is other than heterosexual. That may well be as it should but there are provisions of the Constitution that have the effect of undermining the rights of those citizens who are not heterosexual.

There is a presumption in the Constitution that all citizens are heterosexual and that all relationships are of a heterosexual nature. From that presumption flows the constitutional provisions on marriage between a man and woman only and the character of the nuclear family: men and women marry to procreate is the core message of the Constitution. The State gives constitutional protection to the mother and the family unit arising out of marriage.

Religious tenets rather than secular pluralism are uppermost in the sections dealing with the family and marriage. By recognising the statutory registration of same sex relationships the State is accepting in the Civil Partnership Bill that it has been neglectful of the rights of its citizens whose gender is not heterosexual. It is accepting same sex relationships and granting them the protection of the law. Likewise, similar protections are now being granted to co-habiting heterosexual couples who do not choose to marry.

It is a major step forward considering the statutory status that existed until 1994, that of outright rejection and criminality of homosexual activity. In my view the next logical step is the right of marriage between same sex couples, a full civil union between two citizens who are in a stable loving relationship. Otherwise our Constitution reflects a two tier discriminatory system based on sexual orientation.

The Working Group on Domestic Partnership to the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice commented in their Option of Full Civil Partnership as follows in 2006 “Full civil partnership falls short of full equality for same-sex couples as it excludes such families from the protection given to the family in the Constitution”.

No less a person than our former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, made this enlightened statement in April 2006: “Our sexual orientation is not an incidental attribute. It is an essential part of who and what we are. All citizens, regardless of sexual orientation cannot stand equal in the eyes of the law. Sexual orientation cannot, and must not, be the basis of a second-class citizenship. Our laws have changed, and will continue to change to reflect this principle”.

1916 is an iconic year for Irish people. It is the year that the Republic was proclaimed. Its centenary in 2016 should be the year when we demonstrate that we are cherishing all the children of the Nation equally and the year that we grant full equality to all citizens, including same sex couples.