Sir, – Breda O'Brien points to Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana as examples of two gay Italians who do not believe in same-sex parenting ("Dolce & Gabbana punished for thinking differently", Opinion & Analysis, March 21st).
These two fashion designers, Breda informs us, have given the title of “The mother – the heart of the family” to their latest fashion collection.
Well, what do you know – two gay Italian men supporting their mothers! Were Italian men ever otherwise?
Mothers are not automatically entitled to be addressed as “the heart of the family”. They have to earn it.
Sometimes the father deserves this title more than the mother.
Breda will have to do better than to quote these two in defence of her No vote to marriage equality. – Yours, etc,
DECLAN KELLY,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 14.
Sir, – Stephen Wall (March 21st) states that a Yes victory in the referendum will not affect the rights of those opposed to same-sex marriage as they can still marry whoever they wish irrespective of the result, while a No victory would deny that right to same-sex couples. This shows how far apart both sides are in this debate. Those opposed to same-sex marriage see marriage itself as the discriminator, of its innate nature exclusive to a man and a woman because only they have a capacity to bring new life into being. It is not in any way to disallow freedom to others to live our their relationships with respect, or to give those relationships a special status of their own in civil law.
For opponents of same-sex marriage, the issue is one of children’s rights. For supporters, it is one of adult rights and, while children’s rights are certainly not denied, they are seen in a different light, one that does not set a value on their biological link to both parents, merely to one. – Yours, etc,
MARGARET HICKEY,
Blarney,
Co Cork.
Sir, – Chris Ryan and Mark Hickey (March 21st) take issue with my view that outdated notions of gender roles should not form the basis of maintaining the current ban on gay people accessing civil marriage.
Gay people already parent, and there are some 230 such families, according to the 2011 census. Instead of acknowledging this social reality, hypothetical children facing a hypothetical choice to be reared by either gay or straight parents are trotted out.
These children must be safeguarded from a hypothetical harm that has never been fully articulated anywhere, to my knowledge, beyond a rather tautological statement on the importance of male fathers and female mothers.
The US Supreme Court has made very clear the actual legal harm this view causes, when they held that the unconstitutional federal US marriage ban makes it even “more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family”. In oral argument, Justice Kennedy made this view even plainer; such children “want their parents to have full recognition and full status. The voice of those children is important”.
The real harm is occasioned by a society that tells children that their parents, no matter the content of their characters, are not ideal. I hope that Irish people, with their innate sense of tolerance and fairness, will recognise this inequity and consign it to history. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN DINEEN, LLM
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.