Breda O'BrienThe marriage referendum is not about equality, writes Breda O’Brien
Catholic teaching on sexuality is very, very challenging, and any given individual has the right to accept or reject it. If someone attempted to enshrine in State law, Catholic teaching on say, premarital sex, I would be the first to the barricades to defend the right not to have it imposed on citizens.
There are good reasons why adultery, for example, can be grounds for a judicial separation but is not criminalised in itself. Society does not approve of adultery – just ask people what they think of cheating husbands and wives – but it does not send people to jail for it.
A pluralist society is incompatible with too much policing of people’s private lives. The price to be paid in terms of intrusion and loss of dignity is too great.
Paddy Manning, who is a gay man campaigning against the redefinition of marriage, talks in moving terms about what it was like to be a very young, frightened man arrested by a huge and intimidating garda because of the law against homosexual activity.
Hearing him should make us ashamed that it took us so long to decriminalise homosexuality. It was a part of people’s lives that the State had no business regulating. I admire people who campaigned for decriminalisation, and they are hugely responsible for the much greater acceptance of gay people today. It took immense courage to go against the cultural consensus in order to challenge the law on homosexuality.
For the record, my fervent wish is that adults should have the right to express their genuine, life-affirming love in the way that they see fit. This was a point I reiterated over, and over, and over again, in an interview with Niamh Horan for the Sunday Independent. I said things like that there is so little love in the world, we should acknowledge and celebrate wherever we find real, self-sacrificing love.
Virtually none of this found its way into print, and the headline was ‘Gay people should abstain from sex, like all unmarried couples’.
This headline completely failed to capture the very careful distinction I had made between my own personal views on sexuality, and what I believe should be imposed on others.
I know that journalists do not write their own headlines, but the fact the piece totally ignored the reasons I oppose the re-definition of marriage in favour of an implication that I am obsessed with the sinfulness of gay sex, was profoundly disappointing.
It was doubly so, because Niamh Horan has experienced being at the centre of social media storms herself. She expressed wonder at how I cope with the amount of hatred I experience, as she experiences it from time to time, but she believes I get a constant stream.
However, she also blithely said that even if they only published a picture of me it would cause a huge negative reaction, and so she could not be blamed for any backlash.
The idea of a frame is central in communication. Frames prompt us to think about things and people in a particular way. Headlines are frames.
The frame matters hugely. That is why I also have great concerns about how this referendum is being framed as about equality. It implies that if anyone votes No, they are declaring that gay people are not equal.
Not fair
That is not fair to voters, but it is also not fair to the gay community. If the referendum is passed, there will be a brief moment of euphoria, and then, the realisation will sink in that it has done little to combat the real homophobes.
In Holland, one of the most liberal countries in the world, which legalised same sex marriage in 2001, homophobic incidents have increased in recent years. I hate homophobia, but know that same sex marriage is no magic bullet to eradicate it.
Because of the way in which the State framed the debate, if the result is No, vulnerable gay people will experience it as personal rejection, although it is no such thing.
If there were more tolerance of gay people who oppose gay marriage but dare not speak out their views, it would make it clear that this is not a referendum on whether we think gay people are equal or not.
That is a settled question. Every Irish citizen is equal, and must be treated as such before the law.
This referendum is not about equality. It is about whether we think the relationship between a man and a woman that leads in most cases to children deserves its own unique institution. If we believe diversity is a good thing, why should we have a one-size fits all relationship? Most women, at least, know that one size-fits-all fits no-one well, and that is exactly what will happen if we change the definition of marriage.