Courtney McGrailDear Editor, So far in this marriage referendum we have been told that it is about equality and redefining marriage. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that it is about abolishing marriage as we know it and leaving civil partnership as the only available option.
Currently, in Irish law a marriage does not come into existence until the marriage vows are consummated. In those rare and embarrassing situations where this is not possible, the matter may be taken quietly before the courts for an ‘annulment’; a declaration that a marriage never existed.
As it is impossible for two people of the same sex to consummate their relationship, they cannot be regarded as married under the law of the land. Accordingly we are not being asked to extend the institution of marriage to same-sex couples, as some would have us believe, but rather this referendum is about rebranding civil partnerships and abolishing marriage as we know it, and as it is understood in every charter of Human Rights (see the European Court of Human Rights ruling in July 2014, in Hamalainen v. Finland).
Yours etc.,
Gearóid Duffy,
Lee Road, Cork.