Marriage is an institution, but that doesn’t mean it can’t evolve
SIR, Not for one eccentric moment did I ever consider that the Irish Government’s Civil Partnership legislation in 2010 would have any impact on me or that my name would fall into the registered civil partnership statistics of over 3,000 people in Ireland.
As a gay man and as a community development worker, LGBT issues were usually on my personal and sometimes work agenda. However, partnership rights for same-sex couples wishing to get hitched was definitely not. If a Red C poll had approached me in 2010, as to whether I intended to support same-sex marriage, they would have more than likely recorded an undecided or opposed voter. Why would we want the same recognition and constitutional marriage rights as heterosexual couples?
It’s something that I now look back on and can’t believe it took me so long to recognise that human partnerships and civil marriage should be about love and not gender. It is only when you find someone to love you and you love them, that you want to be married, wear a ring on your finger that means the same as everyone else, to share your life with that special person. Meeting James changed me, changed him and changed us very quickly. Neither of us had ever contemplated having a civil or married partner.
Since a young boy and coming from a single parent family, I had always appreciated society should be ever evolving and in some small way through my own community work, hope I have been part of change and progress. Just because something - like marriage - has been an institution for generations should not prevent it from evolving. The rights of married women have evolved over the years, from their traditional role of very few rights to gaining more equal rights.
In Ireland and elsewhere, marriage needs to evolve and be seen as a human and civil right for all partnerships. It was a need that James and I soon shared. For whatever mad reason, we wanted to join and sign up as a fully integrated and socially responsible married couple. Just like all our married friends, we wanted to add the names of James and Martin to a marriage certificate. At the moment we can only sign up to a civil partnership certificate.
On August 23, 2012, the beautiful Ballyseede Castle hosted its first same-sex civil partnership ceremony, that of James and myself, witnessed by the Kerry Registrar in front of 100 joyful guests. After the ceremony, we had the drink and cupcake reception, the traditional sit-down meal, two groom speeches, the joint cutting of the alcohol-infused, groom-topped wedding cake made by James’ mum Agnes, followed by James and myself doing the ‘first dance’ before the disco. Hey presto it was all done and we had celebrated our union. Our guests had probably thought they had witnessed a marriage but our partnership is not binding in the Constitution from change, unlike our married brothers, sisters and friends who didn’t have to ask voters if they could get married.
The word marriage represents the ultimate expression of love and commitment between two people. On Friday, May 22, it will be put up for referendum as civil marriage, giving couples such as James and myself, full constitutional recognition and protection. James and I support marriage equality for all who want to choose it. We want marriage and it should be our choice, our way of expressing our strong friendship and love for each other. It is as simple as that. Sincerely Martin Greenwood Keel, Castlemaine.