Courtney McGrailDear Editor, It is good that despite the short time agreed by our Government and major political parties for debating and understanding the important marriage referendum, that the debate is largely free of bitterness and ill-tempered rhetoric.
That being the case, the initial lack of clarity by the referendum commission in it’s opening statement, the recent further differences between the Irish and English languages definitions, the issues raised about the adverse post-referendum consequences for children and the focus of one side of the debate on presenting the tens of thousands-year-old concept of ‘marriage’ as an ‘equal/human rights’ issue, has been confusing the ordinary voter in taking an objective decision in this important matter.
What all citizens need to remember is that the existence of marriage, as a partnership between a woman and a man, predates most if not all human systems of government and even Christianity, and has been accepted by all systems of government as a fundamental organisational arrangement of basic communities and society as a whole.
For this reason above all others, it seems wise to take this matter into account before changing this time-tested institution. Even Christ did not alter the meaning or understanding of ‘marriage’, rather endorsing the then status quo and raising it to the dignity of a Christian sacrament clarifying its status with much more simplicity than the recent Irish bishops’ statement which, curiously, was not widely circulated in many if not most parish communities.
The question for every voter is ‘should I, as an individual, cast my vote to change a concept or definition of marriage which has served society well for thousands of years’, to something different on a populist whim of the leaders of our main political parties, whose current stand on so many political and economic issues is less than creditable.
Yours etc.,
John Power,
Smithfield,
Dublin 9.