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Kieran Rose, Chris Robson, Phil Moore and Suzy Byrne celebrate the decriminalisation GLEN

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality

It took a 16-year legal battle to remove the Victorian laws from Ireland’s statutebook which criminalised sexual acts between men.

EXACTLY TWENTY YEARS ago today, Ireland officially passed legislation which finally decriminalised homosexuality.

The legislation, calls the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) 1993 Bill, was proposed by then-FF TD and Minister for Justice Máire Geoghegan-Quinn. The bill removed Victorian laws from Ireland’s statutebook which criminalised sexual acts between men.

“The passage of the Bill in June 1993 was a watershed in the lives of gay and lesbian people in Ireland,” said Kieran Rose, the head of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network. “No longer were Irish people to be treated as criminals, just because of who they were.”

The move to make homosexual acts no longer illegal followed a 16-year-old legal battle which began in 1977, when Senator David Norris began a case against Ireland’s draconian laws. Norris’s case came before the High Court in 1980, where it was rejected, and before the Supreme Court in 1983, where it was also rejected by five judges who found that the laws which made homosexual acts a crime did not contravene the Constitution.

Norris then took the case to the European Court of Human Rights, with the help of Mary Robinson, where judges finally ruled that Irish laws contravened the Convention on Human Rights. Five years later, the laws were changed.

“The passage of the Bill was one of the most important steps in the liberation of gay people in Ireland,” said Rose. “It led to new generations of lesbian and gay people able to live their lives more openly.”

Following the decriminalisation laws, a series of other reforms were brought in, including domestic violence protections, funding for health and social services for gay and lesbian people, and civil partnership legislation.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said last week that he believes a referendum on same-sex marriage may be held in 2014.

“We have come a very long way since the State regarded gay people as criminals,” said Rose. “Ireland has changed.”

Read: US church for ‘struggling’ gays shuts down >

Photos: More than 150,000 protest against same-sex marriage in Paris >

Read: Ukraine gay rights activists hold first ever march >

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    Mute Fagan's
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    Mar 22nd 2012, 12:22 PM

    This scumbag was the FF Press Secretary for years. Even the flippin secretaries in FF are crooked. Will we ever see FF HQ’s being raided for evidence, will their party treasurers be brought in over the last 20 years to explain how party funds can so readily fund personal expenses by their leaders and leading party members.

    Don’t let these crooks spin that Mahon was a loser for the state, it cost 350mn, way too mucvh but it brought in nearly a billion in tax, fines and penalties.

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    Mute foggy_lad
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    Mar 22nd 2012, 12:41 PM

    Fair play to the FBI for not accepting payment for the good work they did, THEY OBVIOUSLY KNEW THEY WERE ON THE TRAIL OF A SLEAZY CROOKED SCUMBAG CRIMINAL.

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    Mute Gerard Murphy
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    Mar 22nd 2012, 12:51 PM

    I think it’s time the State decides that the thoroughly corrupt organisation known as Fianna Fail be shut down.
    All the way up to it’s very leaders it has shown breathtaking corruption and perjury.

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    Mar 22nd 2012, 1:14 PM

    The mind boggles that FF TD’s, party treasurers and key donors are not having the Garda fraud squad beating down their door this morning. There are few countries in the democratic world that would allow an org. as consistently corrupt as FF to exist or be tolerated by the honest majority.

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    Mute Susie Chester
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    Mar 22nd 2012, 1:56 PM

    Gerard
    you are so perfectly right . Shut the whole lot down . Investigate ( Garda investigation) the whole Rats Nest. To Hell with the lot of them.

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