Madam, - I wish to respond to issues raised by certain writers to your paper following my letter of November 9th on same-sex marriage.
Desmond Fitzgerald (Nov 10th) writes that I implied in my letter that anyone not brought up in a "normal" (Mr Fitzgerald's term) heterosexual marriage is doomed. Perhaps if Mr Fitzgerald re-read my letter he would notice that nowhere does it state or imply what he claims, nor does it reflect my personal view on the issue.
Caitríona Burke (Nov 10th) asks if I judge ability to nurture purely on the basis of gender. On this matter I would agree with Ms. Burke that to do so would be "ridiculous". However, it would be equally ridiculous to deny the empirically observable influence of gender in nurturing. Men and women are equal but they are different - hence the value of gender studies and social and psychological research on male/female differences.
Ms Burke concedes that psychologists can "expound on the difficulties children have without father or mother figures in their early lives". However, I would disagree with her point that "they really cannot argue against same-sex couples because they have no experience to draw from". In possibly the most comprehensive study to date, a government commission was set up in 2005 in France to propose any changes to the law that were necessary to better protect the rights of the child and to reflect societal changes in the French family. The commission organised 14 round-table discussions, heard submissions from 130 people from all the diverse sections of French society and travelled to and analysed the experiences in all the countries where homosexual "marriage" and adoption is legal. The commission concluded on January 27th, 2006 that in the best interests of children and French society, homosexual "marriage" should remain prohibited (www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/dossiers/mission_famille_enfants.asp).
Ian Kelleher's repeated reference (Nov 7th and 10th) to the Norwegian Natural History Museum's exhibition on "gay relationships among more than 1,500 species" cannot remain unchallenged.
The objectivity of the exhibition was seriously undermined after Petter Bockman (one of the organisers of the exhibition) openly admitted that there was a "political motive" in organising it. Secondly, Mr Kelleher states that the finding that one in five king penguins forms same-sex partnerships was based on research on animals in zoos. The relevance to humans of conclusions drawn from the behaviour of animals in captivity must be seriously questioned.
Finally, Mr Kelleher states that marriage, in his view, is a recognition of "partnership, commitment, love, support, fidelity etc". But if these are the criteria for marriage,
Mr Kelleher must accept that polygamy, polyamory, familial relationships (whether sexual or not) and non-sexual relationships between males and females could also be recognised as marriages since they can often satisfy the above characteristics. Given the logical implications of accepting Mr Kelleher's definition of marriage, one does wonder if this is what the majority of our citizens want. - Yours etc,
CLARE O'CALLAGHAN, Dún Laoghaire.