Madam, - I found Breda O'Brien's views on same-sex marriage (Opinion, November 13th) rather offensive.
While appearing to take a reasonable, open-minded approach to the topic, as befits the supposedly tolerant times we live in, Ms O'Brien then falls back on the classic strategy, "but, let's please think of the children!" Describing the idea of a same-sex couple raising a child as a "radical experiment" is, quite simply, obnoxious. Yes, how terribly radical for a child to have two adults who care for him or her. Is that radical in this day and age? Perhaps so.
Ms O'Brien points to the effects of fatherlessness on young boys; could these effects, perhaps, stem from the fact that these boys have been abandoned by a parent, as opposed to their father? Could they be the result of living in a one-parent family and being seen as "different" from other children their age, because society still assumes that everyone comes from a two-parent background?
"There are injustices to same-sex couples which could be dealt with other than by changing the definition of marriage," writes Ms O'Brien. But these injustices cannot be dealt with in another way. Marriage automatically confers countless rights on both parties. Why should same-sex couples have to settle for less than these rights, or have to fill out endless paperwork and fight through red tape before getting them?
Since when did it become acceptable to promote sex-based discrimination? - Yours, etc.,
CLAIRE HENNESSY, Templeogue, Dublin 16.
Madam, - While the bulk of media reports on the activities of the House of Lords at Westminster on November 17th has concentrated on the refusal to ban fox-hunting, the peers carried a far more important piece of legislation last Wednesday: the Civil Partnerships Bill. As a result, a mechanism now exists in English law, and is extended to Northern Ireland, whereby same-sex couples can create legally recognised unions.
As the Belfast Agreement obliged our Government to ensure at least an equivalent level of human rights protection in Ireland as is provided in Northern Ireland, can we now expect to see an end to committee-based procrastination on this matter and a start to the implementation of real change? - Yours, etc.,
FIONA DE LONDRAS, Faculty of Law, Griffith College, South Circular Road, Dublin 8.