Is it hurtful to gay people even to raise the question about whether same-sex marriage should be permitted?

The Irish Catholic has asked an interdisciplinary team, which includes Prof. Eamonn Conway and Dr Rik Van Nieuwenhove, theologians at Mary Immaculate College University of Limerick, and Mr Patrick Treacy SC of Integritas, to consider and respond to the difficult questions we all face when deciding how to vote in the referendum. Over the next few weeks we will be publishing their responses.

Introduction

Ireland prides itself in placing ‘family’ at the heart of society, so much so that the institution of marriage and the families it creates enjoy a privileged position within our Constitution and must be “guarded with special care”.

Like the vast majority of countries in the world, marriage in Ireland is considered to be a legally binding union entered into voluntarily by a man and a woman. We are now being asked to consider changing this definition so that two people of the same sex might also enter into a marriage.

As the referendum on same-sex marriage approaches, it is important that we all consider very carefully what a change in the law would mean for society today, and for future generations.

The issue we are being asked to vote on is about more than simply changing a piece of law which may, or may not, apply to us as individuals. It is about changing the way that we, as a society, think about family and enshrining that change within our Constitution.

Q. Is it hurtful to gay people even to raise the question about whether same-sex marriage should be permitted?

It is always difficult to discuss something that is very real and personal to people – perhaps even people who are close to you – if they are likely to experience what you say as hurtful, or as a diminishment of them, or as a lack of basic respect.

Any argument against same-sex marriage based on a lack of respect for gay and lesbian people, and even more so, any argument which sets out to hurt them, should be repudiated by all decent people. Yet we are privileged to live in a democracy which values freedom of thought and conscience. It is perfectly acceptable to disagree with same-sex marriage, so long as we are not disagreeable in the way in which we express our opposition.

When it comes to matters of such public importance as the redefinition of one of the most fundamental and foundational institutions in our society, as marriage is, it is reasonable to ask those who seek this change to listen to and give a fair hearing to those who oppose it. A healthy society is one that tolerates a diversity of opinion and viewpoints, and this should be valued.

It has been suggested that our society today is one that finds the public expression of positions of conviction unsettling and difficult to deal with, and that generally we prefer people to keep such views private. But the pressure to remain silent on matters of conviction can be a cause of offence as well. As Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has remarked, society “assumes that the public expression of specific conviction is automatically offensive to people of other (or no) conviction”. If this is the case, is it really healthy for society? Is this really respectful to those who hold views contrary to the mainstream? Does this shrinking of the space for public discourse really serve the development of a mature and inclusive society? What if the minority perspective, might, in fact, be the correct one? Might is not always right.

We need to learn from the damage that was caused when people, including gay people, were pressured in to hiding their views, and indeed their identity, in the past.

In opposing same-sex marriage, we see ourselves as addressing a very fundamental question: would it be to the benefit of society and of families to make a fundamental change in the definition of marriage? What are the implications for society and for children of the proposal that marriage would no longer mean a union between one man and one woman in the kind of indissoluble relationship in which the procreation and raising of children takes place?

It cannot simply be assumed that the proposal that marriage should be redefined is an obvious good and reasonable step for society to take. What is being proposed is that the word ‘marriage’, which has never been used to describe a single-sex relationship, and which, until very recent times, has never even been considered capable of having such a meaning, should simply be imported, with a radically new meaning, into the fundamental structures of Irish society. To suggest that challenging this is unreasonable, or that it is hurtful to gay people even to raise it, does not address this question at all. It simply passes over it. This fundamental issue for our society needs honest, open, mature and reasoned debate. What is unreasonable is to assume that such a fundamental step for society should simply be taken as obviously the right one, without any informed discussion and deliberation.