Louise Duffy
Staff Writer
A recent poll commissioned by the Irish government has revealed that 73% of people in Ireland think that gay marriage should be legalised.
The poll was conducted by Red C, a marketing and opinion research company whose clients include the likes of Coca-Cola, Meteor, Mac Donald’s and the Road Safety Authority. It was carried out in conjunction with research into the reasons behind the failure of the recent Oireachtas inquiries referendum.
The poll’s decisive findings hardly come as a surprise. Irish society has changed rapidly in recent years, and citizens are increasingly less willing to have the Catholic Church dictate their morality to them. Even those who agree with the church’s teachings on the matter are less likely to feel that it is their place to determine how other people should have to live their lives.
While most would look at this poll as a good thing; as a conformation that Irish people are becoming more accepting; the result also reveals a worrying reality of Irish political life. The poll clearly states that Irish people agree with marriage equality. Why then, do we not have it?
The gay marriage question serves perfectly to illuminate how short democracy often falls of its stated aims. While the exact definition of democracy has never been quite agreed on, we can see that no matter which definition you choose, democracy is on the side of gay marriage in Ireland.
The very literal interpretation of the concept of democracy is that it is simply ‘demos kratos’ – ‘rule by the people’. This reading of democracy suggests that if 51% of the citizens of a country believe a certain course of action should be taken, then that is what should happen. In the case of gay marriage, a clear majority of citizens would legalise gay marriage. It doesn’t take a political analyst to realise that, in a democratic country where 73% of people want a law changed, it should be changed.
The other main interpretation of democracy advocates the protection of personal rights and sees it as inappropriate for the state to intervene in the private maters of citizens, no matter what the majority think. It envisions that once citizens are not harming others, they should be able to live as they want. Again, this reading of democracy clearly supports allowing people to choose whom they marry.
Every day that gay marriage continues to be illegal in Ireland despite a majority of people agreeing that it shouldn’t be, the gay community are being denied one of their basic rights. What then, is preventing change?
It would be easy to blame the Catholic Church. In fact, Catholic Church bashing has been rather in vogue as of late. It is only natural to read statements from senior church officials that tell us that gay marriage is wrong and blame them for the slow progress of our political system. It is certainly infuriating to hear from these officials that the state has no ‘right’ to define what the legal institution of marriage is. It is indeed impossible not to ask ourselves, if the state (and therefore the people) has no right to define what marriage is, then who does? You? God? Who gets to decide who God is? Or if he even exists?
However, the church are not the ones to blame. We didn’t elect our priests, our bishops, our archbishops or our Pope. In short, they owe us nothing. They are entitled to their opinion, but when their opinion is in the minority, it is our duty as citizens not to let their views take precedence over the view of the majority, especially where innocent citizens are being deprived of their rights for no good reason.
Of course, we can have all the good will in the world towards the gay community and it will achieve nothing. It is the government and only the government who can implement the constitutional and legislative changes needed to ensure gay couples can choose to marry and avail of the same legal rights and protections as the rest of us. It is only the government that can fix the fact that civil partnership doesn’t go far enough towards equality. In an ideal world, the government would recognise the quite blatant will of the people and implement changes without being pushed to. However, Ireland is far from an ideal democracy. Politicians need to know that their job depends on implementing the democratic will of the people. In short, a politician’s stance on gay marriage needs to become a factor that will be considered when the electorate choose who to vote for.
As you may have noticed, the first sentence of this article stated that the government commissioned the poll regarding gay marriage. Is this an indication that things are moving along, and that we may well soon see change? In reality, it is probably not. As part of Fine Gael’s election manifesto they promised to hold a constitutional convention. This looks as if it will examine the possibility of a constitutional amendment that would facilitate the introduction of same sex marriage. However, commentators have pointed out that the constitutional convention will have little real power and that the inclusion of matters such as gay marriage may well just be to pander to voters with a liberal leaning without actually making any solid commitments.
At the moment when you hear about Ireland on an international news channel, you will more than likely be hearing about economic collapse, sloppy financial regulation or just overall general incompetence. The introduction of a gay marriage bill would put Ireland on the news again, but this time in connection with something good. This time, for being among the small group of countries who are currently leading the way in recognising that there is no need to exclude gay people from the institution of marriage any longer. Ireland has not always been a world leader as far as political progressiveness is concerned, but now may just be our time to change that. The Irish government needs to know that the 73% of people who agree with marriage equality are 73% of the people who vote them into their jobs every five years; and those people want a referendum.
