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AN UNPRECEDENTED number of submissions have been made to the Constitutional Convention ahead of next month’s discussions on whether to recommend a constitutional amendment to allow for full same-sex civil marriage.
1,029 submissions were made to the committee before last Tuesday’s deadline for submissions.
By comparison, 28 were received when the convention sought public submissions on proposals to lower the voting age, and only 21 were received on shortening the presidential term of office to five years.
Many of the submissions were made by interest and lobby groups, though most were submitted by individual members of the public.
The convention will consider the submissions before holding a two-day event to decide on a possible change to the constitution in three weeks’ time.
Convention chairman Tom Arnold said he was pleased that so many people had engaged with the convention on the issue.
“The issue of same sex marriage is extremely important for many people across Ireland and as such it is important that the views and opinions of as many citizens as possible are taken into account by the members of the Convention,” he said.
The Gay and Lesbian Equality Network said its analysis of the submissions revealed an approximate three-to-one ratio of submissions favouring full marriage rights for same-sex couples.
Its own submission said it was “deeply regrettable” that the current constitution – which does not explicitly limit marriage to couples of the opposite sex – had been “interpreted by the courts to exclude lesbian and gay couples”.
“While this constitutional barrier is in force, lesbian and gay men will not have full equality under our constitution,” it says.
The IONA Institute’s submission argued that family structure “matters for children, and the family structure that helps the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage”.
“Those who insist, in the name of ‘equality’, that marriage between a man and a woman should no longer have special status have to ignore or downplay the importance to a child of having their own loving mother and father married to one another and active and engaged in their lives,” it says.
It adds: “Marriage does not have special status because of adults. It has special status because of children.”
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What are the Iona institute protecting children from?? I think we all know what they are implying and it’s scare mongering, tactics that have been used by the church against gays for years. I find their stance on this whole issue to be very thinly veiled bigotry.
Why are they not focusing on the break down of marriage in ireland according to an article in the journal in October 2011 23% of children in Ireland are in single parent households?? Divorce is on the increase, the traditional family unit in Ireland is no more why are they not focusing on these issues??
I’m not a gay activist I’m not involved in anything political I’m a young gay man going through my life the best way I know how to I don’t force the world to listen to me chanting I’m here and queer but when people try and stop me from having the same rights as my friends just because I’m gay it bothers me.
If you don’t like the idea of gay marriage don’t get gay married, simple as that! How does it affect anyone that’s not gay!!
The religious side of things, I don’t really care about, I would never get married in a church anyway. I do not need my love to be recognised by a hypocritical money racket like the Catholic Church!!
I agree with everything you say except the ‘thinly veiled bigotry’. It’s not veiled at all, it’s patently clear.
Well done Paul well said!
The most important thing for a child is to have a loving family and stability. That might be a mammy/daddy or granny/grandad or mammy/mammy or single parent or daddy/daddy.
I am a Catholic and as far as i am concerned the Iona Institute are talking a load of old bull regarding this matter.
The family unit has changed in the last few decades. They should move wit the times in the best interest of the child.
Deirde I have to say that I always smile when I read your comments. You are what a good honest catholic really is! You show you can think for yourself, you dont prescribe to dogma but you are happy with your faith and you are happy to share it without any prejudice or judgement. You are a christian in the truest sense.
There are a lot of so called christians commenting on here that could take a leaf from your book so to speak.
“A family headed by two biological parents” -this isn’t a problem for adoption, fostering or single parents all of which are legal
Yup. I like the addition of “low-conflict marriage” in there too – basically, the Iona Institute seem to be ignoring any relationship that doesn’t meet their ideal. It isn’t the kids born into low-conflict marriages that are being adopted and fostered, and it’s not like all those kids are finding homes. As far as I’m concerned, we’re failing those kids by not allowing gay couples to adopt under the same criteria as straight couples.
I suppose it would make the Iona members’ heads explode if I suggested that gay couples can have low-conflict marriages, too?
I think I got cancer from reading the first few pages of their submission.
I wish groups like this would just come out and say ‘yup, we are bigots’ instead of trying to dress it up and disguise it in the name of protecting children.
The IONA Institute’s submission that is.
Straight ppl make gay ppl.
Have they not cottoned on yet.
Thicks.
The one thing the IONA institute and others of there kind depend on in order for their argument to have any chance of standing is that children need a mother and father in their lives yet they have no evidence to back up this claim and there are same sex couples who have children and there is no signs of children suffering as a result of not having two parents of the opposite sex.
Also what about children with only one parent? They have just a good life as others.
The impact of it is not as same as with the normal parents. The child would think how on earth he has guardian with same sex whereas his/her friends have opposites. This will influence them not to behave as normal.
Quinn and his “Tooter” friends are curiously silent on single parents, presumably worried about the backlash they’d receive if they started talking about them in the same nasty way they talk about LGBT parents. Also, if marriage is really all about kids, then the Tooters should explain why they’re not out protesting against the marriage of infertile people, and people who are too old to have kids, or simply don’t want them.
On the plus side, Tooter propaganda is so dreadful and so transparently nasty that it drives people to support whatever it is they’re currently moaning about.
@ bombacho – “This will influence them not to behave as normal. ” Do you have any proof of this claim?
Hopefully he/she would understand families are different. Being brought up by people who love them and encourage them and support them in their lives is the Key factor, the sex of either parent is irrelevant when instilling values. People aren’t born bigots, or racists or homophobic, they choose to be so.
So I hope you enjoy being ‘Normal’, whatever that means.
Every single family has differences. It would be far more beneficial if there wasn’t so much homophobia
@bombacho Of course when that child looks around and sees other children being raised by their biological parents, or by their foster/adoptive parents or by one single mother, single father, their grandparents, by a mother and stepdad and a dad they see on weekends. Oh yes the child of a same sex couple is going to be thinking “why am I different” alright.
“The impact of it is not as same as with the normal parents. The child would think how on earth he has guardian with same sex whereas his/her friends have opposites. This will influence them not to behave as normal.”
What about those children with heterosexual parents who beat them,throw them on the streets to fend for themselves at a young age,beat them for just being there,giving them no love or attention??? I could just imagine that they stay awake night,grateful that although all this abuse is going on,at least their parents aren’t a same sex couple.
So what happens if a man is a single parent can his daughter not ask him questions about her period,thats so a poor argument you put across are you a member of the iona institute.
@ bombacho – ” the proof is you were born from a man and a woman and that’s natural as in normal” I asked you to prove your claim, unless you can find a peer-reviewed paper that shows a direct correlation between a child having parents of the same sex and that child being raised like an animal, you in turn don’t have any proof and you are giving your opinion.
” One example here if the girl starts to get her period who is she going to ask if her parents are both male”, well she could talk to her sisters, or aunts if she has any, she could talk to her friends on the issue, she could talk to a social worker or a teacher at her school that she could confide in, she could also talk to her parents if they are both male (how do you think single fathers manage this?), what makes you think that any of these people are not qualified in this situation?
Bombacho. Thats very harsh indeed. U should get to know some gay people. They dont bite. They are quite capable of raising a child. They might even be able to teach him to eat with a knife and fork rather than out of a dog bowl!!!
Seriously though. I have no doubt in my mind that a child would fare just as well in life having gay parents. Its different i know. But different is good.
@liam so there is something missing then in the family. No one can replace a mother’s care.
What exactly does a “mother’s care” mean? Also do you believe that a single father raising children is wrong also?
What if the mother isn’t around and its just the father is that not good enough,are your knuckles still dragging the ground by any chance
Bombacho I have many gay friends who would be superb parents. In fact they would probably make better parents than many heterosexual couples I know. The impediments to a gay couple becoming parents causes them to love a child so much more when they actually get a chance to become parents.
@bombacho… Being born from a man and a woman is only proof the a sperm and an egg is required to create life. Almost everything you wrote is so ignorant and constrictive that I don’t know where to start.
“To be natural a child must grow up with normal parents”… Define natural. Define normal parents.
“To be gay probably is normal”… Does that imply that being gay might also be abnormal? Define normal with some evidence backing up your statements.
“If the girl starts to get her period who is she going to talk too…” How about her parents or guardians, they might be women. It is possible for people to understand, comprehend and empathise with situations they may never have, or are likely to experience. What is needed here is two simple things, knowledge and compassion. Neither of which you seem to have. One would hope that parents, whatever their sexuality, understand this and do their best for their children. Good parenting doesn’t require a heterosexual couple, nor does it require a couple.
Bombacho, how does a single mother explain ‘wet dreams’ or random erections to their sons?
Its no different to a father explaining periods to our daughters.
It’s not about replacing a mothers care, it’s about offering a maternal role…. Containment, acceptance, guidance and nurturing. Read ant reputable developmental psychology and you will see that others can step into the role of natural mother and provide a positive and healthy environment for a child.
@Bombacho I’ve never read such homophobic crap. I pity any children you would have with that horrible attitude.
You can’t tell be they straight or gay if they make great parents, trial and error dictates the outcome, from birth to the first year of a child life is the learning curve for most new parents, so for couples be they straight or gay adopting or fostering miss the crucial period, miss the 12 months that wil they make the grade
Are you serious do you actually believe this??
This is just pure ignorance do you not think that you can talk to children and tell them things.
This argument of oh the children won’t be able to cope is just another excuse ignorant people like yourself come up!!
It’s utterly untrue with no unbiased scientific research!
Children are a lot smarter than you give them credit for if they are spoken to correctly!
My boyfriend’s nephew is 4 years of age and he knows we’re a gay couple he calls me his uncle!
Can I ask out of interest how many gay friends or relatives you have!!
My guess is very very few
I suggest you read what I wrote and the fact you are over 12 months old I expect you to know and understand English, the crux of the argument was that his or her gay couple would make great parents is in my eyes bullshit.
I am constantly sickened by the idiotic unfounded spoutings of that group of friends, who banded together to create an exclusive club representative of nobody and with no mandate from anyone, gave them selves the important sounding name of ‘The Iona Institute’ and are somehow granted a special status by the media.
I am not married, never was, have 5 kids, been together with my partner for almost 30 years and yet they would count us some kind of a sub-optimal family. The bloody cheek of them. Families are so varied that no two are really the same, who are they to decide that only a very few of the many varieties are good enough?
I wonder if we even had a civil wedding would that do them? Their view seems to be that the real state of familial perfection only exists when a child has parents who underwent religious formation in a good Catholic school, married as virgins in a Catholic Church, had their kids by immaculate conception, recite the rosary with them twice daily and, I am guessing here, when they have teenagers make bloody sure they don’t get anywhere near that filthy spunout website.
Give me patience!
Not dying before you’re 30 from easily-preventible diseases is also “not natural”, but I don’t see the Vatican or the Quinn and his Tooters complaining about that.
As a married man who doesn’t have children, does my marriage mean nothing? No, the Iona institute are a group or bigots trying to maintain the staunch catholic opposition to anything that goes against the bible!
If I as a straight man get to be miserable with a person for the rest of my life, so should the LGBT community! Why can’t they share in the same misery as the rest of us!
Exactly, marriage and all it’s rigours should be imposed on all equally.
Except for the Iona crowd obviously, they don’t like equally.
“The IONA Institute’s submission argued that family structure “matters for children, and the family structure that helps the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage”.”
I don’t know what a “low-conflict” marriage is but what about straight people adopting a child? Or a single person raising a child or indeed children? Why is this their response to same sex marriage when it applies equally to those other family units?
Of course the other side is that by denying same sex parents marriage rights, you deny their children the right to have two legally recognized parents. How is that best for the child?
“Marriage does not have special status because of adults. It has special status because of children.”
So people who are married and don’t have children aren’t really married? Or they’re not special? Again I don’t see what this specifically has to do with same sex couples either.
Can i asked the people who oppose this what they would do if they had a son or daughter who was gay would they support them or turn your back on them,what if they wanted to marry and adopt would that sicken you because it is wrong in the eyes of your back”god”because thats what all this boils down to its religion.
@shane There have been many parents who have had the scales removed from their eyes as a result of having a gay child, realising that the old views that had been inculcated in them by the church were both heartless and stupid, it’s sadly not always the case.
I have a very good friend who has been living with his male partner for over 20 years. His very Catholic parents have rarely spoken to him and never visited him in this time. They even refused to attend his Civil partnership ceremony. It is a source of constant sadness to him, though he has become resigned to it over the years.
Well thats there great loss in life that the church means more to them than there son its quiet sad really.
Katie does. Thats very tragic for your friend that they can just abandon their son like that. God said he would never forget his own.
Awful parents. There is your proof right there for the Iona Institute that the “natural family” isnt always the ideal option.
That story makes me sad.
I have a very good friend in England in a same sex relationship , they have two children the same age as my own 9 and 2. They are beautiful happy children brought up by two parents that love them very much. No different from there peers .
Their!
Phrase it whichever way you like but having two daddy’s or mummy’s is just going to mess a child up. It’s not what nature intended. A single parent is ok but two of the same sex just isn’t natural.
having two daddy’s or mummy’s is just going to mess a child up
Citation needed please.
What nature intended? There are over 1500 different species that partake in homosexual activities, yet homophobia only happens in one.
“A single parent is ok but two of the same sex just isn’t natural.”
Adam can you explain this sentence please???
So you’re saying that homophobes are unique to the human race, but homosexuals have something in common with gut worms which are known to practice homosexual behaviour.
@Adam a gut worm’s opinion on this matter would hold more weight than yours
So you’re saying that homophobes are unique to the human race, but homosexuals have something in common with gut worms which are known to practice homosexual behaviour.
So, you do acknowledge this does naturally happen with other species too?
That’s ridiculous things like being in an unloving abusive family is far more likely to screw a child up
Three sentences, all nonsense. Firstly, we’ve already had studies all over the world and the data shows that kids raised by same gender parents score just as well, in every way, as kids from ‘traditional’ households. Secondly: nature doesn’t “intend” anything. Thirdly, we’ve been embracing what’s unnatural since prehistory. What’s natural about heating sand, turning it into glass and shaping it into lenses so that otherwise blind people can see? Or taking a vein from someone’s leg, moving it up to just outside their heart so that they don’t die of a heart attack? Of all the silly arguments against marriage equality, the “it’s not natural” one smacks the most of desperation.
That’s bullshit Adam two of my best friends are a same sex couple who have children and a happier household you wouldn’t see anywhere.
Adam if Gay Marriage is legalised and 2 gay men/women get married and adopt kids into a loving home, how does that affect your life or mine in any way?
So would a child be better off with a junkie mother or a gay couple who can provide all the love and affection a child needs.it’s 2013 people we shouldn’t even be having this conversation.
Says who? Can you provide any shred of evidence from a unbiased and credible source to back up this claim?
Is that to me frank????
Lol, Adam, show me one case where nature supported a single parent by allowing a single female to fertilise her own egg? Nature and society are very different and I suggest you learn your nonsense better before spouting it off!!
Wow, gut worms are gay now?! There’s so much about this crazy world that I still don’t understand. Oh well, I suppose this explains why I’ve been sh***ing rainbows!
How are the worms’ children doing?
Having a mammy and daddy seems to regularly “mess up a child” too. But that is natural so it’s okay? All that matters is what is best for the child, there is no static template for this, but in every case, in every reputable article on the matter, what is now, and always has been best for the child is for the child to feel loved, accepted and secure. All people have the capacity to offer these conditions.
Also, do you think nature created the institution if marriage? I don’t remember Darwin mentioning anything about marriage when talking about evolution.
They dont believe in evolution they believe that we are here 6 thousand years and shared the earth with dinosours that eventually got wiped out in a big flood because the couldn’t fit on noahs boat.
Your dead right
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/style/living/Wellbeing/article1216627.ece
Great article by a psychotherapist about why we need to stop focusing on “traditional marriage” as the ideal and look at the benefits of domestic diversity
What does the Iona institute mean by ‘low conflict marriage’?
Are they referring to relationship conflict and the impact on a marriage? If so, how does being gay, straight, whatever you are have an impact on whether the relationship is a ‘low conflict marriage’?
Or are they referring to maintaining a low level of conflicting moral situations/definitions as imposed by a conservative perspective?
Either way, ‘low conflict’ is utter tripe.
The sooner full marriage rights are recognised the better.
I wish the Iona Institute would feck off. They’ve did more to encourage gay marriage equality than anyone and I’m far from ready to fit in a size zero white dress n walk down the aisle :p
Eh Richard there are plenty of sexual acts that straight people perform as well that are pretty disgusting but i don’t tend to think about them a lot! I’ve more important things to be thinking about.
From m own viewpoint and and all my friends and relations i know the very idea of them having physical relations with a member of the same sex would be discusting to them and an unatural act, i cant comment on G/Ls people because i dont understand their mentality and therefore am not qualified to do so.
You should get out more.
You need better friends!
you do know its 2013? what a ridiculous comment to make. you say your not qualified to make a comment after you have made your comment. Leave the commune and come into the real world
Hi Richard. 1. Learn proper grammar. 2. Being gay is not a mental illness 3. Being gay is not unnatural, immoral, wrong, deceitful, whatever else you or anyone else might want to categorise it as. 4. From reading the comments here it has been 98% positive and it was really nice to read and a huge thank you :-) we will look back at this topic in 20 years and will wonder why it was ever such an issue.
Kudos to you sir for making it through a homophobic rant without once mentioning Adam and Steve. Nothing worse than a cliche.
I know lucifer there is always one isn’t there
1.Gay marriage is wrong,a marriage is the union of a man and women
2 As a parent i know a child needs a Mothers love more than a fathers ,
3 Its unatural for 2 men to bring up a child.
4. Adam and eve not Adan and Steve
Is it unnatural for two women to bring up a child?
Adam and eve had two boys, Cain and Abel… Did those two men somehow manage to produce a child through incest? Where did their wives come from? Did god use one of their ribs to fashion more women? I see you are putting your bible studies to good use creating a well informed opinion there.
I smell a troll
Ah Kirsha you crack me up with your points there, especially your Adam and Eve not Adan and Steve comment :-) you are funny don’t give up the day job……seriously don’t ! As a mother I am sure you do a brilliant job but I have friends who are fathers who are single raising their kids and they put some women to shame the attention and care they give their kids are excellent. I also have friends who are gay and have kids and they are brilliant parents to their kids. I’m sorry Krisha but that whole notion of men can’t be great fathers is a pile of crap. That is just affirming to stereotypes.
No its not Conners, I know its not the answer you are looking for and you will came back with some righteous crap,and by the way your a bigger bitch than I am .And If you were my brother I would call you my sister.
Lol lol lol thank gawd I am not your brother. With a sister like you I pity your brother. Luckily I have a fantastic sister with three beautiful kids that took part in my gay wedding and they love my partner as an uncle too. The next generation of children will see its perfectly normal and loving and your backward thinking will reside in the past.
Oh and along with your bible studies you might want to get some lessons in grammar and spelling.
The love from a mother and father can not be compensated from anything else in the world including same sex relationships
Allot of gay people here
Your point?
…..Everywhere
Jjj
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