As mentioned on Saturday, David Quinn will be on RTÉ’s Questions and Answers tonight. One of the topics up for discussion is Cardinal Brady’s recent remarks about the Civil Partnership Bill. There will be a liveblog available here, with the programme itself starting at 22:45 Irish time. Feel free to drop in and comment on the action as it happens, it should be fun! You can also watch it online from here.
In other news, “rebel cleric” (thank you, Indo) Father Iggy O’Donovan has expressed alarm at Cardinal Brady’s recent remarks, and has said that when it came to sexual morality and relationships, “clergymen often make the worst leaders possible” (see the article here). Nice to see that he understands the sense in keeping the Church out of the bedroom, and of not prescribing one family-type for everyone in the audience.
Thanks to Ian for this information:
David Quinn of Iona Institute fame will be on RTÉ’s Questions and Answers this Monday evening. Other guests will include Olivia Mitchell, Maureen Gaffney and Ed Walsh. One of the topics they will be discussing is the Cardinal’s remarks on the Civil Partnership Bill (see here and here). What with me living in France I can’t be there, but if anyone can get their hands on tickets or volunteer to go on (and I’ll try and get some) and do some intelligent heckling and support the cause, I would be ever grateful. Please e-mail me on conorpendergrast@gmail.com to let me know either way.
In other news, I’ve added a way to subscribe to the blog by e-mail on the left, and a new section called “Fact Finder: My Family“. The latter will hopefully act as an info point for people about my family, and the former will hopefull encourage people to keep up-to-date with the blog.
It was a busy and very exciting week, as we all know, with the US Presidential Elections happening on Tuesday night. I was glued to the TV (until 4am, when I became cold and sober, at which point I went home) and pretty excited to see Obama winning. While we can never be sure what a politician will actually do, he does state support for “full civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples” and expanding adoption rights to give people fair consideration as parents, regardless of sexual orientation (see this pdf).
But of course, this silver lining came with a cloud for many Americans, with Arizona, California and Florida banning gay marriage (even though California and Floria both voted for Obama) and Arkansas banning gay couples from adopting children. Pretty bleak stuff, but sure the rights groups will be challenging the ban. Ironically, some have suggested that the increase in black people voting this year might have lead to the passing of the ban.
Back to Ireland, and the Catholic Church is again getting angsty about the Civil Partnership Bill.
“…Ireland looks set to repeat the mistakes of societies like Britain and the US by introducing legislation which will promote cohabitation, remove most incentives to marry and grant same-sex couples the same rights as marriage in all but adoption.”
Ah, if only he knew that if I was writing the legislation I would add in proper legislation to recognise families of same-sex couples. Ah well, at least earlier fears the government sidelining the Civil Partnership Bill due to the economic turmoil (of course, there is no recession) have been squashed.
And, following in the footsteps of Cardinal Brady threatening legal action when the Civil Partnership Bill is introduced, the ever-pleasant David Quinn has written another opinion piece, stating that he believes that the Government is launching a “direct attack on the special status of marriage”.
This got me thinking, why is it that opponents focus on the “institution” of marriage so frequently? An idea came to me today. Maybe the Catholic Church (in Ireland) has been feeling its grasp on Irish people slipping away gradually since the foundation of the State. Could it be that marriage is the final hold it has over society, and it will do anything in its power to keep from losing that power?
Or maybe it’s just that they don’t want marriage demeaned by giving it to the gays. Ouch.
PS: David, you erred in saying that there was a “lack of any real public demand” for civil partnership. To quote Moninne Griffith of MarriagEquality:
“It is high time that the lesbian and gay family unit, including children, are recognised and protected in Ireland. Indeed, 84% of the Irish population support civil partnership or civil marriage being made available to lesbians and gay men and an overwhelming 86% agree that children of gay and lesbian parents should have the same family rights as the children of married parents.”
Wow, it’s been a month since I put anything online. I need to stay on top of this more.
For me, it’s important to understand the driving forces and emotions behind other people’s actions. As a result of this, and in the spirit of intelligent debate, I have looked at and come to understand most of the arguments against same-sex families, some of which I can sympathise with.
Some opponents fear that same-sex parents might be ill-equipped at raising children, while others feel that they would not provide adequate male and female role-models. For the time being, I will simply state that the evidence suggests that this is not the case, and I will deal with these subjects at length in a future post.
What annoys me, however, is the language sometimes used in the various debates. My encounter with a woman in a radio interview a short time ago (unfortunately the recording is no longer online) highlighted this for me. Two phrases in particular irritated me; “Same-sex family experiment” and “gay agenda”.
I’ll deal with the latter phrase first. The term “gay agenda” is, to me, somewhat ridiculous. It would be akin to saying that there was a slave agenda, a black agenda, or a women’s agenda, or that today there is a disability agenda. The various movements over the years have sought for the same things : equality and respect. It’s exactly what I’m looking for now, with the Civil Partnership Bill (And no, I agree, it’s not nearly good enough). All that my family and I desire is to be treated equal to any other family in the State.
And of course the words “gay agenda” bring to mind another phrase; “hidden agenda”. If you didn’t already know it, let me share a secret with you: there is no plot for the homosexual community to corrupt the children and take over the world. Sorry, but it’s just not true.
Photo owned by fishermansdaughter (cc)
The other phrase, “same-sex family experiment” annoys me so because if my parents are seen as being the experimenters, then I am both the experiment and the product of the experiment. And who, honestly, wants people to think of them in the same way one thinks of a papier-maché volcano? I told my mother, Bernadette, about hearing this phrase, and she scoffed about it and said “It wasn’t an experiment, we just wanted to start a family”. This, I guess, is the crux of our story. My parents didn’t decide one day to see what would happen if they brought two children into their life. They weren’t looking at the variables and they haven’t sat down now and said “with Conor having survived until age 22 with no psychological scars, we can be 95% confident that he grew up in an environment as stable as a typical heterosexual family”.
Photo owned by xmatt (cc)
This family was started by a couple who were in love, and who decided to raise a family of their own. Is that so wrong?
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As always, your support and efforts are appreciated. From the humble comment to the supportive e-mail (conorpendergrast at gmail dot com) to an e-mail to the letters page of the Irish Independent or Irish Times, it all makes a difference. For more ideas, check out the What Can I Do page. And for everyone who has done something, much love.
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