Madam, - Justice Minister, Michael McDowell claims (Opinion & Analysis, March 2nd) that the Dáil amended the second reading resolution of Labour's civil union Bill "to allow more time for a comprehensive civil partnership Bill to be brought before the House and to await the outcome of the Zappone appeal pending in the Supreme Court".
In fact the Government motion adjourned the second reading for six months - which is well after the statutory limit for a general election. The Government took this line knowing that all Bills must lapse when the Dáil is dissolved and a general election is called.
I would have more respect for the Minister if he had had the courage to vote down our Bill in a direct way rather than engage in this sort of smart-alec manoeuvre, designed to present a sympathetic face while killing off a measure his Government fiercely opposes.
In his article the Minister consistently muddies the waters by referring to an entirely separate issue: whether or not there should be a "civil partnership" system in our laws for persons who are not married but who are cohabiting domestically in a long-term relationship of inter-dependency.
The issue is entirely separate because cohabitation in the context of a heterosexual relationship is voluntary. A heterosexual couple could get married but decide not to. This raises issues as to the sort of recognition the law should provide for a relationship falling short of marriage that is entered into by people who have the option but reject it.
These issues deserve consideration but they were not the subject matter of my Bill, which was specifically concerned with a group of people who are constitutionally disabled from marrying.
To insist, as Michael McDowell does, on a common framework for all cohabitants is to ignore the particular unfairness imposed on people who want to do more than cohabit but who are prevented from marrying each other.
It seems the Minister still cannot see and appreciate that point. His approach is still to bundle together same-sex couples - who are not married because they cannot marry - with those couples for whom cohabitation is a matter of lifestyle choice. His approach is ignorant, patronising and blinkered.
The Minister has also claimed that our Bill attempted to pre-empt the Supreme Court decision in the appeal in the Zappone/Gilligan case. But that case is not about whether it would be unconstitutional to change the law so as to give recognition or status to foreign same-sex marriages. That case is about whether the Constitution and the law, as they at present stand, require the State to recognise a same-sex marriage celebrated a few years ago in Canada.
Our Bill, of course, was concerned with what the law will be after it is passed, rather than what it is now, and it had no impact on the issues in the Zappone/Gilligan case.
Finally, the Minister points out that the Constitution requires the State to protect marriage with special care and to protect it against attack. He says it is not open to the State to create a status for a relationship which has all the rights and duties of marriage but which is not a marriage in the sense recognised by the Constitution.
Presumably the Minister is not arguing that those of a homosexual orientation should reconcile themselves to the married state? Or that offering civil union for same-sex couples would lure heterosexuals away from marriage? If he is not saying that, on what conceivable basis is he arguing that making specific provision for same-sex couples has any effect whatsoever on an institution that is at present confined to couples of opposite sexes?
Labour's Bill contained within it one single over-riding principle - the principle of equality. This principle is unquenchable and undeniable. It is founded on the bond of our common humanity. It is based on our recognition in each other of an essential shared human experience. Our shared humanity is far greater than any difference in how we look, how we pray, what our capabilities are, or how we choose a partner in life.
As Dr Martin Luther King said on that famous day when he proclaimed his dream of equality, he had come to remind us of "the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquillising drug of gradualism".
Minister Michael McDowell took the tranquillising drug. For all the grandeur of his title, he decided to defeat a basic matter of justice, equality and law reform. I repeat that his postponement of our Bill was not a vote for delay: it was a vote to defeat the Bill. It is for the victims of that defeat to decide who was responsible and what they should do next. - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN HOWLIN TD, Labour Party Spokesperson on Justice, Dáil Éireann.