The debate currently taking place within the gay community over the invitation to the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, to open the 13th annual Dublin Lesbian and Gay Film Festival later this week illustrates that differences of opinion are just as common within that community as in any other. In that sense, it is debatable to what extent there is a gay community that can be defined beyond the limited boundaries of sexual orientation. But there is no lack of serious issues affecting gay people.
Despite opposition from traditionalists and some sections of the established churches, a growing number of countries - still very small but growing nonetheless - have opted to legislate for gay marriages. Canada did so last week and Spain not long before. They join Belgium and the Netherlands in placing unions between persons of the same sex on an equal footing to heterosexual marriages. Civil ceremonies in which unions between gay people are registered and acknowledged in a way slightly short of formal marriage are allowed in some other jurisdictions. But as events last year in California and Massachusetts showed, when activists drive events too far ahead of the rest of the community, a backlash can occur. In the US, the achievement of gay rights fed into the campaign that saw George Bush returned to the White House.
Placing same sex unions on an equal footing to heterosexual marriage would likely arouse deep and genuinely felt opposition here as much as anywhere else. At present, an Oireachtas committee is examining the subject, prompted by Senator David Norris's Civil Partnership Bill which has been set to one side for the moment. A more than reasonable case can be made for measures to allow gay partners enter into legal agreements through which they may plan for, for instance, the consequences of one of them dying. And beyond such practical matters, why should gay people not be able to avail of some sort of officially acknowledged declaration of their relationships?
Great strides have been made in this society in recent years in giving gay people the rights they were denied for too long. The wider community no longer tolerates institutionalised discrimination against identifiable groups and we are all the better for that. When it comes to gay rights, Michael McDowell is more liberal than some of his colleagues in Leinster House. It is healthy for our democracy that a senior Government minister opens a gay film festival - healthier still that his presence prompts political debate among his hosts.