The Vatican document on homosexuality and the priesthood raises questions about the capacity of institutions controlled by the Catholic Church to fight discrimination and promote equality, writes Niall Crowley.
Lesbian, gay and bisexual people form a valuable and important part of our society. Their contribution is increasingly visible and celebrated across a wide range of sectors. They have enhanced the richness and complexity of our ever evolving Irish identity.
Irish society does not have a good track record in responding to difference and to the diversity of its people. Difference has been denied or rendered invisible. Difference has been deemed to be a problem or even criminalised.
Gay, lesbian and bisexual people are no strangers to this phenomenon. Homosexual acts were only decriminalised in 1993. The diversity of sexual orientation has been invisible in areas such as educational curriculums or in contexts where fear has made it difficult for gay, lesbian and bisexual people to come out. Perversity and shame have been attributed to expressions of love between same-sex couples.
The introduction of equality legislation here, which includes a prohibition of discrimination on nine grounds including the ground of sexual orientation, marked a new place for difference and a diversity of people. Difference is more openly acknowledged.
However there is still some distance to travel before difference is actively valued. The absence of partnership rights for gay and lesbian couples is a reflection of this gap between acknowledging difference and valuing difference.
In such a context, the recent Vatican instruction on homosexuality and the priesthood reflects an era that should now merely be a regrettable part of our history.
Gay, lesbian and bisexual people are deemed to be a problem where "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" are identified as "objectively disordered".
Gay, lesbian and bisexual people are somehow rendered deviant where they are described as finding "themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women".
Instructions to its congregation and ordination to the priesthood are matters for the church itself. However, the instruction has the impact of undermining the self worth of bisexual, lesbian and gay people and stimulating their greater invisibility, and will diminish any wider celebration of difference in society.
It must be of broader concern given the cultural impact of the teaching of the church and given that the church directs and controls institutions that employ people and that provide goods and services, accommodation and education.
The church is a significant cultural institution. It influences, shapes and communicates a significant part of the value system of Irish society. A value system that deems gay, lesbian and bisexual people to be problematic and deviant damages any ambition we might have for equality on the ground of sexual orientation.
Recognition and access to a status in society is an important equality objective. It establishes how a group is valued in society and how its difference is taken into account and accommodated or resourced.
While progress has been made by lesbian, gay and bisexual people here, equality of recognition has not been achieved. This is evident from accounts of low self-esteem and reports on high levels of suicide among young gay, lesbian and bisexual people. It is evident in the failure to take account of same-sex relationships and to accommodate them through partnership rights.
The Vatican instruction holds the potential to damage progress made and to limit further progress required in this area.
By contributing to a more hostile cultural context for bisexual, gay and lesbian people, the instruction contributes to an environment that is permissive of abuse, hostility, discrimination and exclusion of lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Such an environment also serves to disadvantage any other group deemed to be different to the dominant norm.
The church directs and controls a range of institutions, particularly in the provision of education and health services.
These institutions are subject to equality legislation that prohibits discrimination, harassment and victimisation on the sexual orientation ground in employment and vocational training and in the provision of goods and services, accommodation and education.
While the Vatican instruction does establish that "these people must be received with respect and delicacy", it reflects a norm and an understanding that raises serious questions about the capacity of institutions controlled by the church to combat discrimination and to promote equality on the sexual orientation ground.
Does this norm and understanding allow, for example, Catholic church-controlled schools to develop and implement necessary policies, procedures and practices to ensure there is no harassment of gay, lesbian or bisexual students or students imputed with this identity?
Does it allow church-controlled hospitals to develop and implement necessary policies, procedures and practices to ensure gay, lesbian and bisexual staff do not find their careers blocked by discrimination or blighted by harassment?
The Employment Equality Acts also include an exemption that allows religious, educational or medical institutions which are under the direction or control of a body established for religious purposes, or whose objectives include the provision of services in an environment which promotes certain religious values, to take action which is reasonably necessary to prevent an employee from undermining the religious ethos of the institution. This has not yet been tested in casework under the Acts.
However, it has been identified by gay and lesbian organisations as a significant barrier to gay, bisexual and lesbian people using the equality legislation to address experiences of discrimination.
The exemption has also been identified as reinforcing the fears of gay, lesbian and bisexual employees in these institutions about the security of their position. The exemption could also be in breach of the EU Framework Employment Directive.
Lesbian, bisexual and gay people experience a powerlessness as a minority subject to exclusion and discrimination. In such a context there is a need for the State to respond to the context created by the Vatican instruction.
This response could usefully include steps to put in place a legal recognition for their relationships on a par with heterosexual relationships and to amend the exemption described above in the Employment Equality Acts to ensure it cannot be used to justify discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation.
Niall Crowley is chief executive officer of the Equality Authority