Ireland shows the way on marriage equality

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This was published 8 years ago

Ireland shows the way on marriage equality

The Republic of Ireland has voted to enshrine marriage equality in the country's constitution, joining 19 other countries and a large majority of American states. It was the first country to use a national public vote to extend such rights to same sex couples.

The vote was the culmination of years of campaigning. In 2012 the then deputy prime minister, Eamon Gilmore, called same-sex marriage "the civil rights issue of our generation". At the weekend, Ireland's Equality Minister, Aodhan O Riordain, declared: "This has really touched a nerve in Ireland . . . It's a very strong message to every LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] young person in Ireland and every LGBT young person in the world." We agree.

In Australia, the Marriage Amendment Act 2004 declares that marriage is "the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others". The Irish constitution does not include such a definition. Indeed, in 2010 the Irish government enacted legislation that provided legal recognition of the partnerships of gay couples. But proponents of Friday's "Yes" vote pointed out that marriage is protected in the constitution and yet civil partnership is not, and could be removed in the same way it was introduced.

Ireland is a strongly Catholic country. In a survey in 2011, almost 85 per cent of the people of the republic identified themselves as Catholic. And although the influence wielded by the church has been diminished greatly by the kinds of child abuse scandals currently convulsing Australia, pre-vote polling last week found that about 35 per cent of the populace still relied on the church as a source of influence in their vote.

If such a lesson had yet to be learnt, the Irish vote demonstrated that the question of marriage equality is not one of morality or religious dogma, but of human rights. If this can be understood in Catholic Ireland, why not in secular Australia?

Defining marriage in legislation makes it self-evident that it is a statutory matter. Making a legally recognised marriage unobtainable to people based on their sexual orientation is clearly discriminatory, no different to making such institutions off-limits to people of certain religions. Being able to produce a marriage licence provides certainty in many situations, including matters of financial benefit.

More than 70 per cent of Australians are in favour of same-sex marriage, according to a 2014 poll by campaign strategists Crosby Textor. And the lobby group Australian Marriage Equality reports that our Federal Parliament is just four votes shy of being able to pass a marriage equality bill in the House of Representatives, while in the Senate a bill could pass with a majority of one.

Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen recently dropped his opposition to same-sex marriage, and former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan has also changed sides, conceding he was "wrong" to oppose marriage equality. The momentum on this issue, in Australia and in much of the rest of the world, is in one direction. And the popular view in this country is clear.

The Age has long called for marriage equality, and we have yet to hear a persuasive argument against the proposition. Once again we are left to wonder: when will Australia's elected representatives reflect the views of the populace and right this wrong?

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