State marriage should be abolished and replaced by legal recognition of long-term committed heterosexual, homosexual and non-sexual relationships, a weekend law conference has been told.
Dr Oran Doyle, a lecturer in TCD's law department, said allowing different groups in society to adopt their own definition of marriage would produce the most egalitarian solution to the current debate on the status of marriage.
He expressed opposition to gay marriage, not because homosexuals would be bad for marriage, but because "marriage would be bad for homosexuals". Marriage was "an inegalitarian institution" because of the extent to which gender roles were ascribed to the partners.
"Those who choose to marry choose an institution in which the following roles are presumptively assigned according to gender: child-rearing, wage-earning, meal-cooking, lawn-mowing, lightbulb-fixing, blocked drain-cleaning, clothes-washing, rodent-killing, etc," he told the conference on legal recognition of committed relationships, held in TCD.
While these roles were not rigid, their negotiation within couples took place against a background of what was considered appropriate for each person's sex. Given this background, it was better for homosexuals not to marry, he said.
Prof William Binchy, a member of the Irish Human Rights Commission, said legal recognition should be given to couples wishing to enter into "lifelong irrevocable marriage".
The 1995 divorce referendum replaced one model of marriage with another, he said: "Even as spouses commit to marry until death do them part, the law hears their commitment differently and treats them as having made a commitment of a quite different character."
The denial of a model of lifelong marriage was "anti-pluralist" and interfered with people's autonomy, he argued, because individual citizens should be free to make up their own minds on the question.
But if this form of marriage was recognised, stringent safeguards would have to be introduced to encourage people to reflect on the "awesome nature" of their commitment and convey to them the "depressing reality" that many spouses overestimate their prospects for success.
Dr Neville Cox of TCD likened opposition to gay marriage to the opposition to inter-racial marriage of 50 years ago. It was "quite simply unfair" that something "so important and, at its best, so wonderful" should be denied to people who directed their love to others of the same gender.
