Madam, - The Iona Institute is currently engaged in a powerful media campaign to oppose the extension of legal protections to same-sex couples. The single argument it seeks to hammer home is that, in the words of Tom O'Gorman (November 21st), "child welfare is the overwhelming reason why the State gives special support to marriage".
If this is the case, why does the Iona Institute not take this argument to its logical conclusion? All legal benefits currently attached to marriage should be withheld until the birth of the first child. In this way the State's financial obligations to married couples would be greatly reduced, and couples who remain childless due to infertility, age, or just sheer selfishness would cease to be a drain on the public purse.
Naturally, those who have children out of wedlock would not benefit either, so the attractions of marriage and procreation would be greatly enhanced, much to the delight of right-wing Catholics. And such a course would clearly undermine the equality agenda of the same-sex lobby too. Perfect! - Yours, etc,
ROY STANLEY, Brighton Road, Dublin 6.
Madam, - Isn't it significant, amusing and, frankly, not surprising that in Tom O'Gorman's profound 376 words on marriage he has failed to mention the most important one of all - love! Mr O'Gorman is right to refer to the importance of children and to say that marriage is about more than sexual intimacy but surely marriage is all about love - which, seemingly, does not feature in the Iona Institute's view of it. My friends and relatives include couples who are gay and I cannot perceive any difference between the quality of the love in those gay relationships and the love that is evident in heterosexual relationships.
The gay couples that I know demonstrate precisely the same deep and abiding love for each other that we see in traditional Irish marriages. This, in my view, strongly reinforces the importance of ensuring that gay couples in Ireland are given the right to marry each other, just like straight couples. A watered-down version such as civil partnerships is simply not good enough.
Equality is not ambiguous. Gay people are entitled to full equality - not a "slightly equal" alternative and concessionary solution. Moreover, that equality must include the right to have children, either by adoption or by conception. I believe I am safe in presuming that Tom O'Gorman's statements on the importance of children in marriage probably exclude extending that most vital human and civil right to gay couples.
The Iona Institute's view of marriage is anachronistic. It takes me back to my younger days when the Catholic Church tried to tell us that children were the purpose of marriage (and that contraception was, therefore, necessarily evil). Marriage is simply the recognition and the celebration of love between two people, regardless of their sexual orientation.
Lennon and McCartney got it right when they wrote: "All you need is love". Maybe, now, the Iona Institute will find room in its quite limited vocabulary for that most ubiquitous four-letter word. - Yours, etc,
DARA HOGAN, Highfield Court, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.