Sir, – I welcome Noel Whelan's support for marriage equality for gay women and men (Opinion, January 25th). I also support his view that we should not be afraid to let a conservative position be heard in this discussion.
However, not all language is acceptable in debate. Mr Whelan describes a debate he organised in 1989, as auditor of the Commerce and Economics Society at UCD entitled “That Homosexuality is Perverse and should be Discouraged”. He explains that the title was chosen to be deliberately provocative. He found the debate entertaining. I found it anything but. The atmosphere in UCD, as in Ireland generally, in the late 1980s was not a welcoming one for gay people. Decriminalisation did not occur until 1993.
Mr Whelan may not be aware that I, and other gay people who attended UCD at that time, found the language of such debate deeply threatening. The use of such a title suggests to many that a reasonable question is being posed, and that either answer may be acceptable. Several hundred attended the debate. Several thousand saw the numerous provocative posters. It made UCD an even more difficult place to be for a gay person.
The current debate is being listened to closely by many gay adolescents and young adults who are coming to terms with their sexuality. The language we use is likely to have profound implications for their future emotional and psychological health. We all need to remember this. – Yours, etc,
Dr DES McMAHON,
South Circular Road,
Dublin 8 .
Sir, – Noel Whelan (Opinion, January 25th) as a supporter of the “campaign for marriage equality”, suggests his fellow supporters who stifle debate (by unfairly using the label “homophobe”) do not serve their cause because the Irish people are suspicious of any proposal when they are not given an opportunity to debate it.
The irony of his position, however, is that the very use of the label “campaign for marriage equality” is itself a stifling of the debate. This campaign title at least implies that those who wish to preserve marriage as founded upon union between men and women are in favour of “marriage inequality”. An adult homosexual male or lesbian female enjoy the identical rights of a heterosexual person to marry a person of the opposite sex. While that may be an unwise and often an impossible right for a homosexual male or a lesbian female to exercise, they are not denied the exercise of that right by reason of inequality or discrimination on the part of the State but by their own sexual orientation.
A true debate is stifled by the inaccurate use of language. Whatever views any of us hold, we all must seek to truthfully call things what they are, to label things correctly, especially marriage. Has not every civilisation that has gone before us, which used the label marriage, meant it to refer to unions between men and women? This is truthfully the campaign for the re-definition of marriage. – Yours, etc,
PATRICK TREACY SC,
Stoneyford, Co Kilkenny.
Sir, – If I am correct that the intention of Noel Whelan’s article (Opinion, January 25th) is to communicate to the liberal and LGBT communities not to overuse accusations of homophobia in the marriage equality debate for fear of causing disaffection, then it is a wise suggestion.
These communities could be at risk of closing down the debate and disaffecting voters by assuming that the debate has been won. It hasn’t. However, this is a political analysis.
On another level it is incredibly difficult for the LGBT community to be dispassionate in the face of an opposition that appears to them to be homophobia masquerading as conservativism. The LGBT community has everything on the line in the marriage equality debate.
Minority stress (the concept that minorities become stressed from anti-minority messages in society) has been a key factor linked with having a negative impact on the mental health of LGBT people in a number of LGBT mental health surveys.
If this referendum passes it will be a stake in the vampiric heart of homophobia. At this level, this debate isn’t just about answering a political/ civil rights question, it is about one generation of the LGBT community trying to ensure that the next one doesn’t have to suffer their negative experiences.
While the LGBT community does have to be politically astute, it must be noted they have long suffered the effects of latent and visceral homophobia to understand better than any its appropriate application! – Yours, etc,
SEAN CASSIDY,
(Former Chair, DCU LGBTA
Society),
St Laurence’s Road,
Dublin 20.