It’s been a long road and a difficult journey, but then nothing worthwhile was ever easy. Of course we are not there yet. It is 22 years since Ireland decriminalised homosexuality, and 15 years since the Equal Status Act prohibited discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Years of campaigning, courageous testimony, support from families, allies and our communities helped achieve these important breakthroughs. On Friday, in polling booths across the country, Ireland gets to decide whether or not its LGBTI citizens should be afforded full constitutional equality and allowed equal access to civil marriage.
I cannot remember a constitutional proposal which was so straightforward. It is rather beautiful in its simplicity: “Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex”. Yet in its simplicity, it powerfully asserts a founding principle of our Republic; that all citizens should be guaranteed equal rights and equal opportunities, and that our Republic should cherish all the children of the nation equally.
You could be forgiven for believing that this referendum is not really about marriage or even about equality. As is the pattern with Irish referendums, tangential and emotive issues have been forced into the debate in an effort to derail it and confuse the electorate. We have been told that this referendum is about surrogacy, that if we enshrine the right of same-sex couples to marry, we are enshrining a right for them to “beget children”. This assertion has been fully debunked by the Referendum Commission which has shown considerable patience in repeating on many occasions that the referendum is not about surrogacy, and not about adoption.
Marriage matters. Bunreacht na hÉireann makes it clear that the constitutional family, is “the natural and primary fundamental unit group of society” and “indispensable to the welfare of the Nation and the State”. I agree wholeheartedly with that view of marriage and of the family. My family, and more to the point, my relationship with the man I love, challenges me every day to be the best that I can be. My relationship with Paul over these past 16 years, through all its many highs and its occasional lows, has demanded of me an integrity and a commitment to constantly challenge myself and grow as a person that no other relationship ever has. I am a better person for loving him. I am a better man for it, and together we are better members of our family, our community and of our society. Our family has the same potential to be indispensable to the welfare of the nation and the State as the families of those vocal on the No side. One is no better than any other, and all deserve equal regard and full equality before the law.
In Irish constitutional law the family is a married couple with, or without, children. Marriage is how society shows its support for the committed, intimate relationships we form with the person we love. It is more than a legal construct, and more than some sort of state incentive scheme to promote the procreation of children. Of course marriage is of vital importance to children. It binds together the families within which they live and are loved, providing security, legal protection and support. But civil marriage does not require that every couple who marries must procreate, or adopt, or foster, or even have children at all. And though most married couples do, many do not. Equally, many couples with children choose not to marry. The ability or indeed the willingness to procreate has never been a requirement for civil marriage. So why has the No side attempted to make it the barrier to ending discrimination against same-sex couples in our civil marriage laws?
Many predicted that this referendum campaign would be bitter and vitriolic, and yes, it has had its occasional darker moments. But they have been few and far between. For me, it has been full of moments and conversations that I never imagined I would experience.
Everywhere I have gone I have met people who have been energised and impassioned by this referendum in a way I have never seen before – queues of people outside Garda stations and council offices, lining up to make sure they can vote. Public meetings with standing room only, where people came to express their views and have their questions answered. At a time when politics has little currency, it is an exercise in a kind of passionate democracy that is a powerful signal of how things could be. Of a society which can passionately and respectfully debate an issue that only a few years earlier would have divisive and fractious.
It has been a joyous experience. I feel, perhaps for the first time in my life, like I could be a fully equal citizen. I have felt this way because of the people I have met, people I do not know, who have told me that I am one of them. That I have the same dreams and aspirations, the same capacity for love and goodness, the same contribution to make to my community and my society as they do. And that is no small thing.
Please use your vote today. If you fail to do so, you will have failed to answer a question which may well shape the future of our society. Because in truth, a Yes today isn’t just a Yes to allow me and others like me to marry the person we love. It is a Yes to a Republic of equals, to an Ireland that does not merely tolerate difference, but one which sees the common humanity and decency beyond everyday differences. It is a chance to make history.
Colm O’Gorman is Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland