David Quinn
The State can’t protect families if we can’t even agree on the definition, writes David Quinn
The Government’s liberal push shows no sign of abating. On the contrary, its victories in the likes of the abortion and same-sex marriage referenda have only spurred them on. It now has in mind for us referenda on divorce, blasphemy, women in the home and the special place of marriage in Irish law.
On the fringes, we even have talk of a referendum on denominational education so that Church schools will no longer receive public funding. What starts on the fringes can suddenly go mainstream, especially if the media throw their weight behind it. Brexit started on the fringes, so did abortion and same-sex marriage.
Note that there is no real public demand for any of these referendum plans. How many members of the public drop in on TDs insisting we hold a vote to reduce the waiting time for divorce?
How many are demanding we remove the Constitutional provision against blasphemy?
Is the provision stating that women should not be forced out of the home because of economic necessity really that unpopular? Are denominational schools really so out of favour?
Referendum
Talk that we should have another marriage referendum has come more or less as a bolt from the blue. It suddenly surfaced in the Dáil a couple of weeks ago during Leader’s Questions. Leo Varadkar was being asked about the women in the home provision when he announced that giving special Constitutional protection to marriage is “anachronistic” in view of how much the family in Ireland has changed. He cited the number of lone parent families.
His views were then echoed by Simon Harris speaking in the Seanad a few days later. The Health Minister was speaking about a change in the law that will allow two women to be legally recognised as the parents of the one child.
He then said: “the idea that a [lone] mum or dad bringing up a son or daughter, or a grandmother bringing up three or four grandkids for years, effectively raising them, are not recognised as families because of our Constitution’s outdated understanding of what constitutes a family is something that we should examine.”
What does the Constitution currently say on this matter? It reads: “The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.”
Until 2015, marriage meant the conjugal union of a man and a woman, but since the referendum of that year, marriage is now the legal union of any two adults who are not too closely related.
It can even mean the legal union of two heterosexual friends of the same sex as we saw with the marriage of Matt and Michael a few months ago. (Matt and Michael have both lived in the same house for years as friends and decided to marry for financial reasons.)
It is clear from this that the Irish State already attaches no special importance to the conjugal union of a man and a woman. Strictly speaking, the Constitution now pledges the State to give the same special protection to the marriage of Matt and Michael as it does to the marriage of any given man and woman.
This is despite the fact that the marriage of Matt and Michael is intrinsically infertile and conjugal unions by their nature are the only kind that can lead to children.
A sane Government knows that society cannot exist without conjugal unions. This automatically gives such unions a special importance. The rule is simple; no children, no society.
It should be equally obvious that society has a special interest in helping to ensure that as many men and women as possible raise their children together. In a triumph of pure ideology, our Government no longer believes this. Nor does Fianna Fáil under Micheal Martin and nor do any of the other main parties.
This is why the Government’s talk about holding another referendum on marriage will meet almost no political opposition. Instead we will have much talk (again) about the need to be ‘tolerant’, ‘compassionate’, and ‘realistic’. We will hear a lot about ‘equality’ and ‘diversity’ and ‘choice’.
Constitution
We will be told that the Irish family is ‘changing’ and that the Constitution must now recognise this. We will hear that there are now more than 200,000 lone parent families in Ireland and that one-in-three children are being raised outside the marital family.
We will hear much less talk about family breakdown. This is barely a term our political system recognises. As they survey Irish society they refuse to see the number of families from which a father is absent as a cause of concern. Instead they see evidence that the family is become more ‘diverse’, and diversity’ is always something to be ‘celebrated’.
If another referendum on marriage and the family does go ahead, I think the wording put before us will pledge to guard with special care ‘the family’, as distinct from ‘the institution of marriage’.
But how can you guard the family with ‘special care’ when you don’t even have a proper working definition of ‘family’ aside from almost any group of people living in the same house? What would ‘guarding with special care’ look like when family breakdown and family diversity look like the same thing to you? And what will Churches have to say in the event of such a referendum?
Will they be willing to say that the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman has enduring importance, and say so, or will they give up the ghost?