Same-sex marriage vote is not just about equality

Correspondent Tom Carew (Irish Examiner, Letters, March 31) rightly said that freedom of expression (or of dissent) is fundamental to an open society.

The experience of Ashers Bakery, Dolce and Gabbana, and Brendan Eich (and the parents whose children are read stories like ‘King and King’, or ‘Dad, Papa and Me’, in school in the US, despite protestations) are indicators of the heavy price this country will pay for political correctness if the same-sex marriage referendum is successful.

We must open our eyes to what it is we are being asked, or rather being pressured, to legalise.

If it were only to allow gay people to say ‘I do’ (something they can do already), as Taoiseach Enda Kenny misleadingly claims, then few if any of us would object.

In fact, when you look behind the rhetoric, you see that you are saying ‘yes’ to many things that have little to do with equality: ‘yes’ to surrogacy, which either involves the exploitation of poor women or the confusion of a child born to its genetic aunt or grandmother; ‘yes’ to anonymous parenting; ‘yes’ to the legal denial of the value of the biological link between parent and child and the uniqueness of a mother and a father, which will have implications for all custody and adoptions hearings; and ‘yes’ to the suppression of freedom of debate, freedom of dissent and ‘parity of esteem’ for all.

Margaret Hickey

Blarney

Co Cork