Head2Head: YESEloise McInerney says everyone has a right to choose marriage and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is no better than racism. NOTony Allwright says the recognition of gay marriage would discriminate against other kinds of partnerships and be open to abuse
YES:I read a rather grim story recently in Newsweekmagazine. A woman in Seattle was trapped in the basement of her home when flood waters poured into it. She phoned her partner, who came to try and get her out, but the pressure of the water was too strong. They called the fire brigade but, by the time it arrived, the water had already filled the basement and she was unconscious.
She was rushed to hospital where, unaccountably, her partner was banned from her bedside as she fought for her life, allowed entry only in time to hold her hand as she died.
Afterwards, her partner was also forbidden to make any of the funeral arrangements. This happened because, although they had been partners for 10 years and had committed to each other in a public ceremony, the couple were not legally married.
Neither had they ever had the option to get married, because they were both women, and the state of Washington does not allow same-sex marriages. (Afterwards, the testimony of the bereaved woman, Charlene Strong, was crucial in having legislation passed to legally recognise same-sex couples in the state.)
During the recent Civil Union Bill debate, Charles Flanagan TD told a similar story of a gay man in his constituency who was treated as a stranger by the family of his deceased partner, relegated to the sidelines during the funeral and denied the rights and respect that we would normally accord to someone in his position.
Sadly, these kinds of stories repeat themselves again and again. Stories of couples forced to separate because they were born in different countries and couldn't achieve residency through marriage; of parents whose children were taken away from them when their partner died; of bereaved people being forced to sell the house they shared with their partner because the State had more right to it than they.
The only thing that will put an end to these stories and end the hardship and discrimination faced by same-sex couples is the provision of full civil marriage for all, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
After much procrastination, the Irish Government has finally decided to begin addressing some of the problems faced by same-sex couples in Ireland, and will table the heads of a Bill on civil partnership before the summer.
We have no idea when actual legislation will emerge, or what exactly it will provide, but one thing is clear - it won't be full equality.
What are on offer are special rights, not equal rights. Same-sex couples will continue to be treated as second-class citizens, and the law will continue to treat their relationships as inferior and undeserving of the same respect accorded to heterosexual relationships.
Unfortunately, there are people who would agree that this should be the case, many coming from a religious perspective - claiming that marriage is sacred, defined in the eyes of God as existing between one man and one woman. But nobody is asking for church weddings here. Religion doesn't, and shouldn't, have a part to play in state contracts.
Others argue that marriage exists to protect children, and since gay people don't have children, they should have no right to marry.
But gay people do have children, they do raise families, and they do so just as well and as capably as heterosexual couples, often in the face of official discrimination. These children are being denied the very protections under law that we consider so important.
Gay parents are a fact, now, today, in this country - why should their children be discriminated against?
But marriage is not just about children. If it were, why would we allow people beyond child-bearing age to marry? Why would we allow those unfortunate couples with fertility problems to marry? Why, for that matter, would we allow people who choose not to have children to remain married?
Because there is a recognition that marriage is also about love and commitment. Some claim that gay people don't want commitment, pointing to the jaded stereotype of the promiscuous gay man.
This argument is a tautological one - gay people don't commit, therefore they should not be allowed to commit, but without the legal mechanisms and expectations of commitment, how are they supposed to do so in the first place?
Apart from that, it completely ignores the promiscuity of heterosexuals. A trip to most straight nightclubs on Saturday night speaks volumes.
Sexual orientation cannot be changed, anymore than skin colour. We think it's wrong to discriminate because of the latter, so why should it be okay to discriminate in terms of the former?
Gay people are normal people. They work, they pay taxes, they participate in their communities, they contribute to society, they raise children.
Marriage is not a privilege, it's a right. Is it really fair to continue denying same-sex couples the same rights and respect as other Irish citizens?
• Eloise McInerneyis communications officer of LGBT Noise, a group set up last November to lobby for gay civil marriage in Ireland. ( www.lgbtnoise.ie )
NO:Civil union, civil partnership, gay marriage. It's all the talk, these days. Unless you're one of those (say in the Vatican) who believe homosexuality is some kind of curable disease, or else a fun lifestyle choice like drinking wine instead of beer, you would have to feel sorry for the plight of gays and lesbians in a hetero world.
A tiny minority wherever they go, often - and wrongly - despised, disliked or disparaged, whether to their face or not, I doubt they can ever feel fully comfortable except amongst fellow-gays.
Furthermore, except for those torn few who suppress their true sexual nature, conventional marriage is out, as is having children and enjoying a "normal" family life. Conventional marriage is, of course, a State-endorsed union between one man and one woman who vow to stay together for life.
Thus, when you hear proposals for making marriage available to gays, you'd have to be especially hard-hearted to remain unsympathetic. Of course, there's nothing to stop two gays vowing to remain together as a couple for life.
But without legal standing they would be denied the social benefits of marriage, specifically the opportunity to be taxed as a single unit rather than individually; tax-free inheritance of assets between spouses; the continued payment of a pension to a surviving spouse; and certain other less pecuniary rights such as next-of-kin status.
These benefits help couples procreate and raise children by reducing the financial penalty of the parent who spends more time rearing and less time earning. Only last week, Kate Holmquist lamented in The Irish Timeshow motherhood reduces earning power.
Yet numerous studies demonstrate that kids have a better chance in life if reared by their married biological parents. This is society's return for the tax breaks. Thus, the practical argument against gay marriage is that without the possibility of children, marital tax concessions have little payback.
It is true, however, that availability of gay marriage might help reduce promiscuity among gays, but although this may be intrinsically beneficial to society, it is not comparable with raising responsible future citizens.
Granting legal status to gay unions means conveying very real financial advantages. So, a question immediately follows: what's so special about a partnership that's gay? If gays are to benefit, there are plenty of other partnerships that should also be considered: two elderly brothers who have shared a house all their lives; a spinster daughter and/or bachelor son living with their widowed mother; lifetime bridge partners who have long shared a home together; celibate gays; three siblings.
Once you move away from the one-man-one- woman formula, the possible permutations become limitless. The one thing that would distinguish gay partnerships from all the others is that sex is involved, albeit fruitless sex. But that is a ridiculous prerequisite for tax breaks.
Yet without it, the doors would open to all kinds of people - genuine and mountebank alike - claiming to be civil partners as a tax-convenient ploy, some undoubtedly exercised on the deathbed of a conveniently ageing relative or friend.
Linda McCartney, resident in England for three decades, hired top lawyers to have her will probated in New York, which avoided 40 per cent inheritance tax, estimated at £60 million.
Without discriminating in favour of gay sex, it will be impossible to stop two people hitching up for purely tax purposes, or indeed three or four. In jurisdictions - such as the UK - which have granted significant tax advantages to gay couples in civil unions, it is only a matter of time before non-gay couples claim and obtain similar rights. It's already happening.
Britain's two elderly Burden sisters, who have lived together all their lives, are appealing, on anti- discrimination grounds, to EU courts to avail of the inheritance tax waiver now available to gay couples. Otherwise, when one of them dies, the other will have to sell their shared house to pay her sister's inheritance tax. Eventually, someone will succeed in extending gay tax breaks to non-gays.
Just as abortion law - originally highly restrictive - has over the years become de-facto abortion-on- demand until late into pregnancy, so tax- advantageous civil unions will eventually become available to any couple (or triple) who ask for it.
The "equal rights" argument does not hold water because gays already have the right to marry someone of the opposite sex; they just usually choose not to, albeit for understandable reasons.
So, for all the understanding gays deserve, any kind of statutory non-traditional marriage for them or anyone else is insupportable and unjust. It's either too discriminatory against non-gays, or else too wide open to abuse by tax-dodgers.
Resultant tax concessions would, in the absence of any discernible payback, unjustly increase the tax burden on others. Non-marital vows and commitments are personal arrangements. The State has no business getting involved.
• Tony Allwrightis a part-time engineering and industrial safety management consultant and a blogger ( www.tallrite.com )