Victory: Reason - 1, Bigotry - 0

In the spirit of the recent World Cup, I thought that I would celebrate the passage of the Civil Partnership Bill in a way that's perhaps more familiar to the public at large. Sitting here, listening to yet another one-sided debate about the bill, however it seems that the fire that raged in advance of its passage through the Dail shows no signs of being extinguished anytime soon. I know that Ireland has had about as shameful a record of human rights abuses as it is possible to have but I had hoped that we were progressing as a society to become more tolerant and inclusive. Boy, was I wrong. The level of bigotry and hatred that streamed forth during the run-up to this bill was something which is normally only seen in countries which specialise in burning American flags. When you see teenagers standing outside Leinster House with posters of bible quotes and "Save Ireland from sodomy" you know you've got to be really worried.

 The thing that really burnt my waffles, as it were, was the flow of utterly baseless arguments that were trotted out by religious groups to support their thinly veiled homophobia. This bill in particular throws up some arguments so ridiculous that I feel compelled, if for nothing else than posterity, to analyse them and expose them to light.

Argument 1: Civil partnership destroys traditional marriage.

I suppose that in order to counter this argument, perhaps its best to first asking what is traditional? Marriage as a legal instrument predates reliable recorded history but the earliest mention of marriage comes from the Code of Hammurabi which was created in Mesopotamia in 1790 BCE. Same-sex marriages were well documented in ancient societies from Rome to China and it wasn't until the official adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire that a dissenting view on same-sex marriage was voiced and not until 342CE that christian opinion against same-sex marriage led to the Theodosian code which outlawed the practice. It would still be another 1300 years until 1601 when marriage was finally introduced into the catechism of the catholic church. So "traditional" catholic marriage has been around for 400 years, christian marriage for 1700 years and humans have been forming societal pair-bonds for at least 200,000 years. Gee, that's some tradition you've got there.

One of the funnier variants or rephrasings of this argument has been the "common good" argument or using the war-cry of Helen Lovejoy "won't somebody please think of the children". This argument states that "traditional" marriage is necessary for the good of society since a child being raised by a father and mother is infinitely prefrerrable to any other family form. Again, there are a number of problems with this argument. The first is, once again, the lesson that history teaches us. Once we expand the scope of our analysis beyond the history of the married couple to that of the family unit we see a model that has changed many times over the course of human history and for the most part is one that modern families would find distinctly alien.

Brian Brown, head of the family institute of Conneticut, tries to defend traditional marriage by saying that historically mothers nurse children and fathers provide for their children by hunting and gathering. Well yes, but no. In truth, hunter-gatherer societies functioned as two loosely amalgamated social groups. The men hunted, leaving the tribe for days at a time stalking some big game in competition with each other. The women on the other hand co-operated as a group and gathered firewood, berries and any other requirements of the tribe while caring for all the children of the tribe as a group. This form of family still exists today in indigenous peoples such as the Kombai in Ethiopia or the Sanema in Brazil.

Throughout history, as a result of a combination of social, economic and political factors the family unit has shifted from pair bond to polygyny to polyandry and in fact the most common form over the last 200,000 years has been a polygynous relationship of one man and many women.

Getting back to the present and using one of the most readily quantifiable societies as an example, here are some statistics from the USA regarding the makeup of the modern family:

• At some point in their childhood 50% of all children will live in a single parent home.
• 1 in 3 children are born to unmarried parents.
• There are 10 million single mothers.
• There are 10 million children living with LGBT parents
• There are 5 million co-habiting couples
• 1 in 25 children live with neither parent

As a result of various social factors such as divorce, death or economic pressures, more and more non-traditional families are living out their lives in happiness and yet society is not bursting at the seams.

Argument 2: Civil registrars should have the right to opt out.

Ah yes, the conscience clause. The argument holds that civil registrars should be allowed to refuse to participate in civil partnership ceremonies. This seemed almost reasonable to many people when it was first put forward but like so many of the other arguments here, it is merely a house of cards, prod it a little and it falls over.

The problem with the idea of conscience is that it is essentially legislating for a right to discriminate. Free speech is one of the corner stones of a civilized society and the acceptance of differing viewpoints in not only healthy for society but also necessary for progress. A lot of societies have realized however that public safety and free speech do not always meet in the middle and thus laws against hate speech and incitement to hatred were born. As a result, groups like the KKK or Westboro Baptist Church are not groups that society pays attention to. Tolerance of differing opinions does not extend to giving equal time to such opinions. We don't listen to holocaust deniers or white supremacists or people who believe the earth is flat, so why should we listen to people who want to deny gay couples their civil rights on the basis that they are evil.

There is a deeper argument here also from Eoghan Harris who suggests that private conscience might be something worth considering if you could be sure that the conscience of the objector was their own and not being rented from the Catholic Church.

Of course the real irony of the situation was that of all the groups who rose to the surface in voicing their opposition to the bill, the one group which counted, the registrars themselves indicated to the government that they did not want or need a conscience clause in the new bill. Interesting, huh? 

Argument 3: The Civil Partnership Bill is an attempt to give moral sanction and legal recognition to something which God has forbidden.

Of course, the scriptural argument. It may not be the loudest argument against the bill but it sure is the funniest. The text of the argument above is taken directly from the "Campaign for Conscience" campaign website. It's full of irrelevant arguments about homosexual behaviour and redundant studies about gay genes in an attempt to throw a blanket of confusion over the real purpose of the campaign. The campaign is an attempt not to protect christian values but to force these supposed values on a population which is becoming increasingly pluralist and atheist.

The first problem with the biblical argument of course, is the constitution, the one thing that opponents of the civil partnership bill claimed to be defending. Article 44, Paragraph 2, Section 2 states: "The state guarantees not to endow any religion." I think that making laws based on Christian dogma fits that description quite nicely.

If we are going to take this argument as a serious one (and it isn't), then let's play along. The main thrust of the argument is the prohibition of homosexuality as laid out in Leviticus. Let's see what else Leviticus has to say about what's acceptable and what's not.


"It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood." Leviticus 3:17
I guess then that we should expect the campaign to outlaw the sale of black pudding and rashers to begin any day now.

"And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, betrothed to an husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given to her; she shall be scourged; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free." Leviticus 19:20
Flogging women who cheat on their fiances, how good are you going to feel about enforcing that one?

"Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord." Leviticus 19:28
Damn it, there go tattoos!

"A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortuneteller shall be put to death by stoning; they have no one but themselves to blame for their death." Leviticus 20:27
See I told you astrology was bad for you.

"However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you.  You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land.  You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance.  You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way." Leviticus25:44-46
Slavery is ok though, right?


I could continue in this fashion for some considerable time, especially if I were to expand my focus to other books of the bible such as Exodus and Judges but this post is long enough already.

There are two important points to be derived from all of this. Firstly, if you're going to live your life according to rules laid out in the bible then you can't pick and choose which ones you're going to obey and which ones you're not. Well you can, but what kind of christian would you be then? Secondly, if you make a choice to follow a particular moral code, that's fine. You can evangelize all you want and try to convince people that this is the better option but you can't force it on them.

The passage of this bill has had some wonderful consequences though. As well as being an indication that Ireland is progressing to become more civilised and tolerant, the rights of gay people in Ireland have been enhanced and the influence of the Catholic Church has been eroded some more. The best result though is that if the Supreme Court finds that there no obstacles to the constitutionality of the bill, then next time round when full marriage rights are on the cards, the religious wackos really won't have a leg to stand on. Then again, when has that ever stopped them.