Unique not unequal - Village Magazine

IARMUID Martin believes in a “culture of

diﬀerence” equality. He is not saying that gay

and lesbian people are deﬁcient compared to

others, he talks about a ‘uniqueness’

They’re all for equality, Diarmuid Martin, GLEN, the

Iona Institute, Marriage Equality, even the

Government. The “Yes” and “No” sides in the May

referendum on same sex marriage seem united.

“Yes Equality”, the civil society group seeking a

“Yes” vote, argue, that “voting yes will be saying yes to

marriage, yes to equality and yes to strengthening

Irish society”. The Government named the Bill to

amend the Constitution, “The Thirty-Fourth

Amendment of the Constitution (Marriage Equality)

Bill ”.

The Iona Institute was aggravated, but David Quinn

is still for equality. “Those of us who will be voting no

in May are not voting No to equality. Instead we’re

voting to ensure that diﬀerent situations are treated

diﬀerently”. Diarmuid Martin is advocating a “No”

vote but remains committed to equality. “An ethics of

equality does not require uniformity. There can be an

ethic of equality which is an ethic of recognising and

respecting diﬀerence. A pluralist society can be

creative in ﬁnding ways in which people of same sex

orientation have their rights and their loving and

caring relationships recognised and cherished in a

culture of diﬀerence”.

Diarmuid Martin believes in a “culture of diﬀerence”

equality. He says: “I am not saying that gay and lesbian

people are unloving or that their love is somehow

deﬁcient compared to others, I am talking about a

uniqueness in the male-female relationship”. David

Quinn is more blunt about the consequences of a Yes

vote: “We will be saying that families consisting of two

married men or two married women are just as

fundamental to society as a family consisting of a

married man and woman”. Mother and Fathers Matter

agree: “Men and women who marry will be denied

proper recognition and celebration of the

distinctiveness of their union and, even more

importantly, any recognition of their role and

responsibility in creating and nurturing children”.

“Culture of diﬀerence” equality is at ease with

discrimination. It is redolent of pre-Civil Rights

attitudes to ‘Negroes’ in the US: ‘separate but equal’ It

has echoes of the “equality before the law” except in

case of “diﬀerences of moral capacity and social

function” that extraordinarily continues at the heart

of the Constitution’s provisions on equality but which

owes its origin in the thinking of the nineteen-thirties.

Article . still provides that: “All citizens shall, as

human persons, be held equal before the law. This

shall not be held to mean that the State shall not in its

enactments have due regard to diﬀerences of capacity,

physical and moral, and of social function”. This

thinking infuses The Evangelical Cross

Denominational Response to the Same-Sex Marriage

Referendum which complains: “Service providers such

as caterers and photographers would be acting

illegally if, on grounds of conscience, they were to

decline services for same-sex weddings”. And Fathers

and Mothers Matter worry that: “any business

connected with marriage or weddings could ﬁnd itself

before the courts if it refuses to provide its goods or

services for a same sex marriage”. “Freedom of

conscience” becomes a cover for discrimination.

“Culture of diﬀerence” equality comes with some

essentialist rendering of men and women. Mothers

and Fathers Matter argues: “Men and women

complement one another. Children beneﬁt from the

balance that mothers and fathers and bring to

parenting”. The Evangelical Cross Denominational

Response to the Same-Sex Marriage Referendum

suggests: “This change would deny the importance our

society places on the complementary role of mothers

and fathers in raising children”. This smacks of the

insidious results of stereotyping that serve to

underpin the fact that women in couples do nearly

three quarters of the unpaid work and more than half

of the total work per day in a household.

Diﬀerence has practical implications. A failure to

take account of such implications does lead to

exclusion. The fact that gay and lesbian people form

loving and sexual relationships with people of the

same sex means they are diﬀerent to heterosexual

people.

The fact that marriage fails to take account of this

diﬀerence means that lesbian and gay people are

excluded from any status or beneﬁt it might oﬀer. Yes,

says the “No” side! That is why you have Civil

Partnership for lesbian and gay people.

“Culture of diﬀerence” equality cannot even deal

with diﬀerence. Making adjustments to the general

provision of rights so as to ensure access and inclusion

has to be the ﬁrst response to diﬀerence. Separate

provision is only a last resort or it becomes segregation

and discrimination.

Another constraint derives from this “culture of

diﬀerence” equality here. Breda O’Brien says if gay

people want to live a Christian way of life, like all

unmarried couples, they should abstain from sex. “If

you can live up to this very demanding thing, I think it

will make you happy [to abstain]. It will be

excruciatingly diﬃcult, I think you will need huge

support, huge help, lots of very strong, loving

relationships”.

You are diﬀerent but we are unique. We don’t want to

do business with you. We will all retain our traditional

roles. You can have civil partnership but you can’t

have sex.

This “culture of diﬀerence” equality is not

convincing. Best stick with “Yes Equality” if you want

equality. •

Unique not unequal

The deﬁcient

philosophy

underpinning

antagonism to gay

marriage

By Niall Crowley

Marriage Referendum

22 May 2015

NEWS

SPECIAL

8May 2015