Vote should reflect the lives we lead - Marriage equality

DURING an interview given in advance of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference by the Bishop of Elphin Kevin Doran to Newstalk radio yesterday, the Catholic Church’s uncompromising opposition to the idea of same-sex marriage was expressed with an unblinking calm that suggested there can be no compromise on the issue between the Catholic status quo and those who wish to see our Constitution changed to better reflect the reality of the lives we lead.

The only logical conclusion that can be reached following Bishop Doran’s interview is that Catholicism still demands that religious strictures and constructs be given precedence over any civil legislative measures that would accurately reflect the very changed world we all have to try to live in, in harmony and with mutual respect for all of those around us.

Bishop Doran is of course absolutely entitled to express his and his Church’s position — he is in reality obliged to do so — but he undermines that great privilege when he uses it to suggest that others who live their lives to the beat of different drum are in some way less, in some way different and are not as entitled to the protections and rights this society can offer through legislation.

This kind of black-or-white demarcation, the old ‘you’re-with-us or-against-us’ absolutism seems a relic from a different, more autocratic time when we lived in a theocracy posing as a republic. Now, it seems, more and more Irish people seem determined to live in a republic that behaves like a republic and are prepared to assert that determination through a ballot box.

One of the assertions made by Bishop Doran yesterday that seems to defy the experience of thousands of families in Ireland was that gay couples who have children are not really parents.

“They may have children — but that’s the point — people who have children are not necessarily parents,” he said. That assertion is so at odds with the happy, inspiring and admirable family units presided over by two men or two women in this country that it hardly bears comment.

A far more realistic intervention in this debate was made at the weekend when Children’s Minister James Reilly told the Young Fine Gael National Conference in Limerick that a ‘no’ vote in the May 22 referendum would send out a “bad message internationally” to those who want to come and work in Ireland. Such a result might also make it less likely that some of those who emigrated to live in a more pluralist society might ever consider returning to live in Ireland.

There are undoubtedly a great number of people uneasy with the idea that our Constitution should recognise same-sex marriage, but that opposition usually melts away when individuals are exposed to the realities of life, especially when their own family is touched by the issue. As on so many issues, experience is far more reassuring than theory.

Ironically, Bishop Doran’s intervention may re-energise those who ask why religion has such a central place in our society, especially in our schools, when it encourages such intolerance and such thinly veiled homophobia.