Marriage amendment is a ‘grotesque nonsense’
The following is a letter by Prof John A Murphy, Cork published in the Irish Times of May 13, reproduced here to help balance out the ‘Yes’ voices of our Dail representatives - editor
I AM going to vote No in the marriage referendum. In doing so, I cannot be charged with either homophobia or religious bigotry. As a UCC governor in the 1990s, I promoted the LGBT society for college recognition. In public life, I consistently opposed the Catholic ethos in the law and I vigorously worked for the separation of church and state.
The proposed marriage amendment is a constitutional nonsense. It is being sedulously promoted by Government, opposition and various agencies as an equality issue, beginning with the slanted and pre-emptive “marriage equality” shorthand title in the constitutional Bill. This description has been further reduced by the Yes side to an equality slogan simpliciter, thus attempting to imply that No proponents are reactionaries, opposed to a basic principle of democracy.
All citizens are guaranteed equality “before the law’” (Article 40.1). Physiologically, however, (without being indelicate) homosexual union is qualitatively different from the complementary heterosexual one. In the former, for example, the issue of consummation, with its legal significance, does not apply. The two categories, heterosexual and homosexual, simply cannot be accommodated in the same term, “marriage”, without redefining that word to a meaningless level.
In the course of the debate, attempts have been made to present homosexual “marriage” as the enlightened outcome of progressive gender history. In fact, the stages cited in this alleged process (the ending of restrictive colour bans, for example) have to do with changing social and political circumstances surrounding heterosexual relations, not precedents for a homosexual union being accepted as a norm.
Article 41 of the Constitution, as of now, clearly deals with the man-woman based family. If the proposed amendment is popularly approved, then a “marriage between two persons of the same sex will have the same status under the Constitution as a marriage between a man and a woman” and “will be recognised as a family and be entitled to the Constitutional protection for families” (Referendum Commission).
Thus, if the referendum is passed, Article 41, heretofore unambiguously and exclusively heterosexual, will also recognise a homosexual couple “as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society . . . a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights , antecedent and superior to all positive law”. Moreover such a couple will be guaranteed protection by the State “as the necessary basis of social order and as indispensable to the welfare of the Nation and the State” (Article 1.2).
Because I reject this grotesque nonsense, I will be voting No.