Madam, - Bernard Cantillon and Richie Keane of Labour LGBT (April 25th) are wrong in their analysis both of Senator David Norris's recent Private Member's Bill and of the response of Justice Minister Michael McDowell to that Bill. They could start by getting the title to the Bill right: it is the Civil Partnership Bill and not, as they style it, the Domestic Partnership Bill.
Comparisons with Spain, where legislation is currently being introduced to provide for gay marriage, are misleading. Ireland has a particular constitutional provision dealing with the status of marriage which means the same issue could not be dealt with in this country by the simple passing of an Act. A constitutional amendment would be necessary and readers will recollect the difficulties associated with previous constitutional amendments in relation to controversial topics such as divorce.
Senator Norris recognised those difficulties and stressed, in his Seanad speech of February 16th on the second stage of his Bill, that it was intended to introduce, as its title would suggest, civil partnership and not gay marriage. The Bill provided, however, that the parties to a civil partnership should have the same rights and entitlements as parties to a marriage and that phrasing put Senator Norris's Bill on a direct collision course with the Constitution.
As a result, by agreement between Senator Norris and Mr McDowell, the Bill has been adjourned to allow the issues to be analysed further by both the Oireachtas All-Party Committee on the Constitution, which is currently holding hearings on the provisions of the Constitution which deal with the family, and the Law Reform Commission, which is preparing a report on the rights and duties of cohabitees.
Messrs Cantillon and Keane might take the time to read the Seanad debate in question, available on the Oireachtas website, and note Senator Norris's generous thanks for what he described as Mr McDowell's "flexible" and "accommodating" approach to his Bill, before they again express themselves as "appalled" at the Minister's behaviour.
I spoke recently on this issue at the annual conference of the Progressive Democrats in Cork, when I successfully proposed a motion calling on the Government to introduce a system of registered civil partnerships for same-sex couples. This motion had been put forward for discussion by our very active Young PD organisation, and followed from a debate on the topic hosted by the YPDs, and addressed supportively by Mr McDowell, at the previous year's conference in Killarney.
I am disappointed to see Messrs Cantillon and Keane attempting to make cheap (and inaccurate) party political points from this issue. The PDs acknowledge freely that they are not the only party to advocate change in this area - though not all parties have made their position an official party policy as the PDs have done - and welcome the support of other parties for their proposals. There are several groups which will not be slow to stoke the fires of divisiveness and controversy, in relation to this issue. Advocates of change should therefore stand united and not be tempted into knee-jerk tirades against presumed political foes.
If Messrs Cantillon and Keane would remove their anti-PD blinkers they might realise that when it comes to this and other social issues, they have more in common with the PDs than they might care to admit. - Yours, etc,
TONY WILLIAMS, PRO, Dublin South-East Progressive Democrats, The Triangle, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.