Dr Tom Finegan
Catholic social and moral teaching affirms the central importance of marriage for both individual persons and wider society as the bedrock upon which society is built. Catholic social and moral teaching further affirms the duty of governments to protect and promote marriage and family life through law and policy.
A general election offers Catholics an opportunity to help build a society within which individual well-being is more easily attained and is better nourished.
Reflection on the importance of marriage is complicated by the recent constitutional redefinition of marriage to include same-sex unions. As things stand, any effort to promote marriage through law or policy will have the side-effect of promoting relationships which are not truly marital. Despite this, efforts to protect and promote marriage are still necessary, can still be effective, and need involve no intention to obscure the point and meaning of marriage.
Proposal
No party has produced anything like a thorough policy proposal on how to promote marriage. In fact, their inaction in this regard suggests that they are all ambivalent towards marriage. Still, voters shouldn’t be – instead, they should be ready to proactively question parties and candidates on the matter. The following are just some points worth considering in this regard.
Funding for Accord, the Catholic marriage counselling and preparation agency, has been cut significantly over recent number of years. The new Government should look to restore this funding. It should also consider whether it would be worthwhile to introduce greater supports for couples planning to marry outside of the Church or who are already married outside of the Church (i.e. in civil marriages).
There is a gap here at the moment – it is a disservice to more secular-minded persons while it also puts pressure on Accord to secularise its activities and message.
The policy of tax individualisation, first introduced in 1999, treats families where one parent works as a homemaker less favourably than families where both adults work outside the home. In other words, it penalises parents who try to maintain a stronger day-to-day relationship with their children (something which already involves its own financial opportunity costs). This needs to be reversed.
Curricula
The next Government ought to do something to promote the public understanding of marriage through education, in particular sex education in school curricula. Since state efforts to do this will be compromised by the current constitutional meaning of marriage, perhaps the best the next Government can do is to make it absolutely clear to faith schools, by way of a departmental circular or public pronouncement or by some other means, that they are completely free to teach the both the authentic meaning of marriage and its implications for relationships, commitment, and human sexuality.
Already there are calls from some quarters to amend Article 41 of the Constitution to make it quicker and easier to divorce (currently Article 41 requires that spouses separate for four years prior to obtaining a divorce).
There is strong evidence from other countries to show that quick and easy divorce laws increase divorce rates. The next Government should emphatically reject calls for a referendum on this matter. If it is to do anything in this area, it should look to amend Irish divorce law to make it bilateral and fault-based (rather than unilateral and no-fault in character).
Finally, public debate on child care focuses exclusively on affordability. Irish child care should be made more affordable, certainly, but parents who do not wish to avail of child care should not be penalised for this choice.
One way to treat stay-at-home parents fairly would be to follow what Norway and Finland do, namely, pay benefits to families with young children who are not enrolled in state-subsidised child care.
Dr Tom Finegan is Research Officer at the Iona Institute.