Last night in Dublin city, Pantibar on Capel Street was packed to the rafters with eager punters. But the customers weren’t there to watch Barcelona trounce Manchester United, they were avidly listening to a distinguished triumvirate of legal experts expounding the legal and social nuances of civil partnership and marriage. In particular, the panel spoke and fielded intricate legal questions on a myriad of topics, such as human rights concerns, and particularly, matters affecting children of same-sex parents and the forced separation of couples when one partner is not an EU national. 

The panel was composed of Senator Ivana Bacik, Reid Professor of Law in Trinity College Dublin and Junior Counsel for Zappone and Gilligan in their legal challenge to have their Canadian marriage recognised in Ireland; Dr. Fergus Ryan, Head of the Department of Law in Dublin Institute of Technology; and Brian Barrington, Barrister-at-law.

Two points in particular resonated for me: First, reference was made to part of the decision of the High Court in Zappone v Revenue Commissioners & Others, where Justice Dunne emphasised that recognition of same-sex marriage was a matter for the legislative branch of the State to determine. The Zappone case is now pending appeal before the Supreme Court but is unlikely to be heard any sooner than June 2010. Justice Dunne’s decision was very deferential to the Houses of the Oireachtas and the Supreme Court is likely to follow suit as its current composition is extremely conservative. Secondly, Panti asked the panel if the introduction of civil partnership as proposed by the Government would constitute a “stepping stone towards marriage equality or a cul-de sac”. The panel stressed that the answer to that question would be decided by us: the voting, lobbying gays who need to keep up the pressure for full marriage rights and responsibilities even if civil partnership is introduced. As happened recently when civil partnership was upgraded to marriage in Sweden. 

So the message is clear: We have to continue to communicate the simple message to our elected representatives that we want to be treated the same. And that the continued ban against recognising same-sex couples and same-sex parent families does not protect marriage, it harms it.

So, on June 5th 2009, when voters across Ireland will be marching into polling stations to declare their support for their preferred political candidates, we have the opportunity of installing supporters of marriage equality in our local city and county councils and the European Parliament. In the Dublin Central and Dublin South bye-elections voters will be able to elect TDs to the Dáil who believe LGBT people are not second-class citizens. There are a lot of pressing issues in the forthcoming elections, such as the economy and unemployment so we have never had so many decisions to make in how we will cast our vote and of paramount importance is the need to reinforce the fact that the economic downturn is no justification for our elected representatives if they are failing to vindicate human rights.

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