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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
— village gender special December 2009 - January 2010
Gay Rights
’ what in the
name of God is that fellow bellyaching about
now. Them old fairies are never satisfied. In
fact I have become something of an extinct
volcano. I feel like writing into the paper like
those Anglo birdwatchers. My letter would
be: “Dear Sir, just to confirm that I am an
extinct volcano. Yours sincerely, David Norris,
Homosexual (Retired)”. By the way I am com-
pletely unapologetic about using the word fairy.
I always liked it, it sounds fun, light-hearted,
mischievous, positive and Celtic. However, I
do hate the word “queer” even though it is
fashionable in academic circles. I was there
in the old days when we fought against the use
of this obnoxious terminology and I am not
prepared to accept it from anyone.
Anyway we have come a long way I suppose.
We did eventually manage to dispose of the
criminal sanction and are on our way towards
civil partnership of some kind. I do remem-
ber in the distant past ,when the opposition
was less oily and sophisticated than it is today,
one old bag sticking her stubbled chin into my
face and shouting “We know ye and yr liberal
agenda, criminal law won’t be enough for ye.
The next thing ye’ll be demanding marriage
for homeo-sexuals” to which I replied “What
a wonderful idea Madam”. And we set off on
this course.
My first idea was to disassemble or decon-
struct the idea of marriage and determine pre-
cisely what positive, tangible affects flowed
from the state of matrimony and find some
method of awarding these positive things
to stable same-sex couples. Regrettably the
Supreme Court, in recent judgments most
particularly one in the last week dealing with
the rights of a sperm donor involved in an
arrangement with a lesbian couple, has chosen
to try to close the ambiguity which might have
allowed the family to have embraced same-
sex partnerships with children. In terms of
its denial of the existence of a de facto fam-
ily this judgment was nasty and unadventur-
ous. It was certainly open to the courts to be
imaginative and to expand existing rights or
to confirm supposed ones. As a citizen and as
a legislator I find it shameful that our Supreme
Court took the narrow option and showed such
insensitivity.
However, it most certainly throws the ball
back into the Government’s court in terms of
making the need for full legislation in this
and other related areas even more glaring.
Perhaps this was the intention of the Supreme
Court: to refuse to be employed by a gutless
Government as proxy legislators. It certainly
exposes and highlights the Government’s
disgraceful record in the proposed Civil
Partnership Bill in which they completely
ignored the rights of children. This makes it
all the more extraordinary that some self-ap-
pointed spokespersons for the gay movement
have not only colluded with the Government
in strangling the Equality Authority but also
actually applauded the Government’s award-
ing of second-class citizenship in this Republic
to gay people.
To explain: at the moment gay people
can adopt. But they can only adopt as single
-
Without civil marriage we remain second-class citizens
s e n a t o r d a v i d n o r r i s
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
“Well I can tell you
I’m not stopping
at the offer of
some kind of
upgraded dog-
licence for gay
people”
individuals. This means that in a same-sex
relationship one partner may adopt (in some
cases his or her own biological children): the
partner is completely excluded. As a result,
should the adopting parent die, the child is
left in limbo. This is institutionalised brutal-
ism to the point of abuse. .
Much of the campaigning against recognis-
ing the rights of the children of de facto gay
families comes from sources within the Roman
Catholic Church. This I find astonishing in the
light of the fact that this organisation at the
highest level, right up to the Vatican itself, has
been implicated for decades in shielding and
facilitating serial child-abusers and rapists
within its own professional ranks. If any group
in society should have its views of the welfare
of children questioned it is surely this group.
The Minister for Justice has stated again and
again that no organisation and certainly
no Church is above the law. But I am afraid
they are. They are above the law because the
churches sought and were granted exemptions
from the operation of the equality legislation
introduced in the s. As a church-going
member of the Anglican Communion I am
astonished that the churches (and yes it was
all of them) should club together to seek to be
freed from equality requirements. Surely the
Gospel is about love and equality?
The implications of this exemption are
serious. For example in the schools, any per-
son can be dismissed if their “lifestyle” come
into conflict of the “ethos” of the church. In
other words you could be fired from your job
with no appeal possible simply because a
Bishop doesn’t approve of your lifestyle.
The wonderful organisation for young
gay people BeLonGto managed to persuade
the Government some years ago to produce
some very effective posters against homopho-
bic bullying in schools. They were launched
by the then-Minister Sile de Valera. In recent
months, however, I attended the opening of the
BeLonGto offices in Capel Street. The Minister
Barry Andrews was there. So was a young
year old youth who that very week had been
forced by one of the Christian Brothers in
his school to take down from school prop-
erty these very Government-endorsed post-
ers. This is in the context of the fact that the
overwhelming majority of bullying incidents
in schools contain some homophobic elements,
yet in the overwhelming majority of cases there
is no teacher intervention. Is this not also child
abuse by the Church, endorsed by the State?
Moreover the Irish Government is the only
Government in Europe to have introduced anti-
gay laws in the last years, to my knowl-
edge. This happened when a same-sex couple
appealed to the Equality Tribunal against the
refusal of their employer to grant them the
same travel privileges that were extended
both to married couples and heterosexual part-
ners in a committed relationship outside mar-
riage. The Tribunal found in their favour but
the Government in the form of Mary Coughlan,
acted to facilitate future discrimination, rede-
fining the term spouse in order to deprive gay
people of their rights and entitlements. This
tells us that we are still vulnerable.
Of course these issues may be addressed
in the new partnership bill. I myself placed
a partnership bill before the Senate about
five years ago. We had a very useful discus-
sion but eventually after years of delay I had
to remove it from the order paper in order
to prod the Government onward. I have to
say in this context that it made me laugh to
hear Bertie Ahern claiming apparently that
he had done more than anyone else for civil
partnership rights. I know exactly what he
did. He delayed, procrastinated, prognosti-
cated and manoeuvred in every way possible
to avoid the responsibility of introducing such
legislation.
I have to accept that there is some move-
ment in the area of civil partnership. The emo-
tional agony experienced by Irish people who
have formed relationships of love with peo-
ple of the same sex from outside the European
Union should be ended. Testamentary wishes
and rights to the enjoyment of home and
income should be confirmed. The mean-
minded and begrudging element are now try-
ing to introduce what they call a conscience
clause because they seem to be afraid that pho-
tographers or florists might be forced to sully
themselves by helping out at a gay wedding.
Well I can tell you I’m not stopping at the
offer of some kind of upgraded dog-licence
for gay people. I have no intention of allowing
spiritual defectives to define me into second-
class citizenship in this brave new Republic. I
wants me rights even if I never use them. And
those rights include being treated as a full citi-
zen with regard to marriage. This is civil mar-
riage. I believe in the separation of Church and
State and if it works one way it works the other.
If the Church shouldn’t tell the State what to do
then the State shouldn’t tell the Church what
to do so no one will or should force Roman
Catholic priests to marry gay people in church.
However, as I have said repeatedly over the last
year or so I have seen on many an occasion
priests of different denominations blessing
bombers, tractors and domestic pets. Some of
them even blessed goldfish. It wouldn’t burst
them to bless a couple of dykes while they are
at it and in any case how did they know the
goldfish weren’t lesbian? With goldfish it is
virtually impossible to tell.
And when we get our rights here in Ireland
(and how lucky we are to be on the brink of
getting them) I hope we do not selfishly for-
get our brothers and sisters in other darker
lands. Gay people are being murdered in Iran
and Iraq, as we speak, in the name of Islam.
Disgracefully, Uganda appears to be about to
follow them, and all in the name of Christianity
of the Anglican persuasion. This means that a
sister church of the Church of Ireland in whose
Cathedral I worship every Sunday is actively
supporting the arrest, imprisonment and exe-
cution of gay men. They talk about schism
over lesbianism and gay rights in the Church.
Bring it on baby! Because I certainly don’t want
to belong to a church that is dominated and
bullied by African demagogues or American
bible-thumpers. No wonder Jesus wept.
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
