Civil marriage offers the legal benefits and responsibilities which would fully protect the children of gay and lesbian families, write Denise Charltonand Paula Fagan.
WE ARE two mothers doing very ordinary things. We change nappies, suffer through Barney, cut up carrots, make sure that we always have a spare bib in our handbag, just like thousands of other mothers every day. We both feel that it is the greatest gift to be a parent and to be part of a family living in Ireland.
However, in the eyes of the same country we are committed to and have worked hard for, we are not a family. We are not both recognised as parents to the son we dote on. Because of this, his rights to his family are not recognised either.
We are a lesbian couple. Our son's non-biological mother doesn't have any rights to him and, critically, from a child protection and welfare point of view, he does not have rights to the woman he recognises as his mother. Instead, his human right to both of his parents is at the arbitrary discretion of a society which knows very little about him or his family.
We will both sit up until three in the morning if he is teething, but if he has to go to hospital for something more serious, it is at the discretion of the hospital staff whether our son's non-biological mother can see him, never mind make a medical decision for him.
If he makes a Mother's Day card at playschool in a few years, it is at the discretion of the staff whether he can make two cards for the people who will drop him off and pick him up every day.
When he goes to school, it will be at the discretion of the teachers to decide whether to invite the two mothers who help him with his homework every night to the parent-teacher meeting.
If he plays soccer or rugby when he gets a bit older, it will be at the discretion of a coach whether we are both told about the weekend's big match that we wouldn't want to miss for the world.
There is a very simple way in which the arbitrary discretion of strangers can be immediately removed from our son's life so that he can enjoy the same type of family security and recognition enjoyed by his cousins and friends.
The Government can legislate decisively so that we, his parents, who love him and love one another, can avail of civil marriage. That's what they did in Spain in 2006 and the sky has not fallen in.
Civil marriage offers the legal benefits and responsibilities which would fully protect our son and our family immediately. Importantly, it would mean that we would be recognised as a family unit, no ands, ifs or buts. We are not looking for a church marriage or blessing. We are not challenging individual church beliefs and understandings on marriage in any way. We are simply looking to be treated fairly in law for our son.
But it is unlikely that the Government is going to do what the Spanish government did and act decisively to give our son his family rights. Instead what seems to be on the legislative table is an á la carte version of limited partnership rights and incremental justice.
The Government has committed to draft legislation on civil partnership in March. Many people, including our legislators, seem to think that civil partnerships or civil unions are the same as marriage. But they are absolutely not. What they are is a separate and unequal institution that will not give the same rights to gay and lesbian couples and their children as marriage provides for our heterosexual friends and siblings.
Equality cannot be dodged or divided, rationalised or spin-doctored. It cannot be discerning or selective, as it is for our son at the moment.
In the meantime, however, while we wait for the arbitrary discretion of strangers to decide on our future, we cannot rely on statutory parental leave or force majeure leave to look after our son. We cannot avail of tax breaks that other families can, even though we are living in the same way as a married couple with a child and we have the same expenses as everyone else. When one of us dies, our remaining partner will have to pay 20 per cent inheritance tax on the very home we have lived in as a family. This could realistically mean selling the family house just to pay the tax bill.
And we are not alone. According to the 2006 census, the conservative estimate is that there are at least 2,000 gay and lesbian families in Ireland. Many are raising children in loving homes.
If it does not introduce civil marriage, the Government is telling those children that they're not the same as their classmates, and that their parents are lesser citizens.
The only way the State can promote and protect the rights and responsibilities of all its citizens - including some of its youngest citizens - is to open the institution of civil marriage to gay and lesbian couples.
We like to think our son deserves it.
Denise Charlton and Paula Fagan are members of MarriagEquality, a new initiative working for full marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples