The same-sex marriage referendum debate

[The Iceman]

Could someone on here clear something up for me,

If a man and a woman had no intention of having children, would they still be allowed to get married in a church?

I don't know where that one lands. Part of the vows/promises taken during the ceremony are to be open to life and whatever children God gives them. If they say no upfront then I dont know.
Good question!

[easytiger95]

William Binchy has a long and public history of Catholic conservative activism against social issues such as divorce, abortion, contraception. I'm not surprised he has found something to be concerned about. That is no ad hominem attack, and you should know, given your record in the area. Should you wish to go back through my posts and find an example of an ad hominem attack on you or others, feel free. I'll own up to any you find.

[J70]

From RTE today. I'm hugely confused Ted. Who's going to be paying for this?


A group of three senior lawyers has said if the referendum is passed, a same-sex married couple will have the same constitutional right as a married heterosexual couple to procreate.

They say that the chairman of the Referendum Commission, Mr Justice Kevin Cross, has said it would be difficult to imagine the legislature privileging an opposite-sex couple over a same-sex couple where accessing surrogacy services is concerned.

The lawyers concerned about the effects of a Yes vote are William Binchy and two senior counsel, Patrick Treacy and Shane Murphy.

In a statement they say that a female homosexual couple can only procreate with donor sperm and a male homosexual couple would require a donor egg and a surrogate mother.

They say there is a strong argument that these practices will enjoy constitutional protection if this referendum proposal is passed.

They say the Government intends to enact a surrogacy bill which will provide for surrogacy in accordance with the new constitutional right of two married men to procreate.

The lawyers say Mr Justice Cross has said it would not be impossible, but it would be difficult to imagine the legislature privileging an opposite-sex couple over a same-sex couple where accessing surrogacy services is concerned.

What exactly is these gentlemen ' s complaint?

[armaghniac]

From RTE today. I'm hugely confused Ted. Who's going to be paying for this?


A group of three senior lawyers has said if the referendum is passed, a same-sex married couple will have the same constitutional right as a married heterosexual couple to procreate.

They say that the chairman of the Referendum Commission, Mr Justice Kevin Cross, has said it would be difficult to imagine the legislature privileging an opposite-sex couple over a same-sex couple where accessing surrogacy services is concerned.

The lawyers concerned about the effects of a Yes vote are William Binchy and two senior counsel, Patrick Treacy and Shane Murphy.

In a statement they say that a female homosexual couple can only procreate with donor sperm and a male homosexual couple would require a donor egg and a surrogate mother.

They say there is a strong argument that these practices will enjoy constitutional protection if this referendum proposal is passed.

They say the Government intends to enact a surrogacy bill which will provide for surrogacy in accordance with the new constitutional right of two married men to procreate.

The lawyers say Mr Justice Cross has said it would not be impossible, but it would be difficult to imagine the legislature privileging an opposite-sex couple over a same-sex couple where accessing surrogacy services is concerned.

What exactly is these gentlemen ' s complaint?

I imagine one issue is that allowing or prohibiting certain types of surrogacy might favour regular or SS couples.
The difference here might lie in surrogacy where a woman carries a baby that is the genetic product of the couple, like the case of the woman's sister recently, versus surrogacy where a one biological parent plays no part in the child's life after conception or birth.

[omaghjoe]

Could someone on here clear something up for me,

If a man and a woman had no intention of having children, would they still be allowed to get married in a church?

This came up when we got married actually, (not that we were intending not to have children).

You cannot get married in the church if you are not intending to have children.

[J70]

From RTE today. I'm hugely confused Ted. Who's going to be paying for this?


A group of three senior lawyers has said if the referendum is passed, a same-sex married couple will have the same constitutional right as a married heterosexual couple to procreate.

They say that the chairman of the Referendum Commission, Mr Justice Kevin Cross, has said it would be difficult to imagine the legislature privileging an opposite-sex couple over a same-sex couple where accessing surrogacy services is concerned.

The lawyers concerned about the effects of a Yes vote are William Binchy and two senior counsel, Patrick Treacy and Shane Murphy.

In a statement they say that a female homosexual couple can only procreate with donor sperm and a male homosexual couple would require a donor egg and a surrogate mother.

They say there is a strong argument that these practices will enjoy constitutional protection if this referendum proposal is passed.

They say the Government intends to enact a surrogacy bill which will provide for surrogacy in accordance with the new constitutional right of two married men to procreate.

The lawyers say Mr Justice Cross has said it would not be impossible, but it would be difficult to imagine the legislature privileging an opposite-sex couple over a same-sex couple where accessing surrogacy services is concerned.

What exactly is these gentlemen ' s complaint?

I imagine one issue is that allowing or prohibiting certain types of surrogacy might favour regular or SS couples.
The difference here might lie in surrogacy where a woman carries a baby that is the genetic product of the couple, like the case of the woman's sister recently, versus surrogacy where a one biological parent plays no part in the child's life after conception or birth.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see what same-sex or heterosexual has to do with it. Two men - they need a surrogate, same as a straight couple where the woman can't bear children. Two women - they need a sperm donor, same as a straight couple where the man is shooting blanks. The rest is details that also apply regardless of whether it's same sex or straight.

[J70]

Could someone on here clear something up for me,

If a man and a woman had no intention of having children, would they still be allowed to get married in a church?

This came up when we got married actually, (not that we were intending not to have children).

You cannot get married in the church if you are not intending to have children.

The priest asks you that??

[armaghniac]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see what same-sex or heterosexual has to do with it. Two men - they need a surrogate, same as a straight couple where the woman can't bear children. Two women - they need a sperm donor, same as a straight couple where the man is shooting blanks. The rest is details that also apply regardless of whether it's same sex or straight.

In my example, I distinguished between a surrogate to carry the child and one to conceive the  child.
It is all a bit subtle, but then the whole referendum is a bit strange in that it appears to conflate black=white, so it is reasonable to wonder about strange outcomes resulting from it.

[The Iceman]

I think the Priest does/should ask the question. There are promises of marriage and conditions for marriage within the catholic church at least:

Free, total, faithful and fruitful (queue the jokes).....

It is free, "not...merely a question of natural instinct or emotional drive. It is also, and above all, an act of free will, whose trust is such that it is meant not only to survive the joys and sorrows of daily life, but also to grow, so that husband and wife become in a way one heart and one soul, and together attain their human fulfillment." (Humanae Vitae, 9)


It is total, husband and wife generously share everything. "Whoever really loves their partner loves not only for what he receives, but loves that partner for the partner's own sake, content to be able to enrich the other with the gift of himself." (Humanae Vitae, 9)


It is "faithful and exclusive of all others, until death... Though this fidelity of husband and wife sometimes presents difficulties, no one has the right to assert that it is impossible; it is, on the contrary, always honorable and meritorious. The example of countless married couples proves not only that fidelity is in accord with the nature of marriage, but also that it is the source of profound and enduring happiness." (Humanae Vitae, 9)


It is fruitful. "Marriage and conjugal love are by their nature ordained toward the procreation and education of children. Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute in the highest degree to their parents' welfare." (Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the World of Today, no. 50: AAS 58 (1966), 1070-1072 [TPS XI, 292-293].*)

[omaghjoe]

Could someone on here clear something up for me,

If a man and a woman had no intention of having children, would they still be allowed to get married in a church?

This came up when we got married actually, (not that we were intending not to have children).

You cannot get married in the church if you are not intending to have children.

The priest asks you that??

I can't remember for sure exactly how it came up but I think it was in a written document that you sign and then my wife got asking questions about chidren being raised in the faith and so on, so the priest explained.

I supose most people would just sign it and ask no questions

[muppet]

This will be a very close run thing imo.

Low turnout, younger voters less likely to vote, complacency,Polls pointing only one way, hectoring, anger with the current government, alot of people keeping their opinions to themselves,main political parties going through the motions with canvassing etc. All the classic signs of an upset.

Not too bothered either way but result will be very intersting snapshot of Irish society in the newish millenium.

Bookies odds and the over/under moving in the no direction. Still looks a decisive (58-60%) Yes but politically informed guys I know reckon the Yes campaign are in panic.

The only problem is getting voters out. Old people always vote in numbers which distorts things. The Church position will compound this. But if there is any decent turnout at all from the U-50s it should be easily carried.

Yeah - they should only get a half a vote if they're not going to vote the right way.

Ah now Seanie I never said that. But the older demographic always votes whether it is general elecions or referendums. As a result they tned to have a greater say in things than other age-groups.

For example in my own family I would guess 4 out of 5 would vote yes and 1 will vote no. Depending on work etc, only two will definitely vote and that could see 1 yes and 1 no. That is just the way it is.

[easytiger95]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see what same-sex or heterosexual has to do with it. Two men - they need a surrogate, same as a straight couple where the woman can't bear children. Two women - they need a sperm donor, same as a straight couple where the man is shooting blanks. The rest is details that also apply regardless of whether it's same sex or straight.

In my example, I distinguished between a surrogate to carry the child and one to conceive the  child.
It is all a bit subtle, but then the whole referendum is a bit strange in that it appears to conflate black=white, so it is reasonable to wonder about strange outcomes resulting from it.

It only conflates black and white if you think heterosexuality and homosexuality to be diametrically opposed. A lot of us would hold the opinion that they are simply different aspects of a shared human condition.

[Maguire01]

Could someone on here clear something up for me,

If a man and a woman had no intention of having children, would they still be allowed to get married in a church?

This came up when we got married actually, (not that we were intending not to have children).

You cannot get married in the church if you are not intending to have children.

By that standard they must really interrogate anyone over 50 presenting for marriage.

[Maguire01]

'Keep your drawers on and pray' doesn't cut it

Did you ever see those simulation games they use for training police officers in firearms? There's a realistic urban setting of crowded buildings in which bad guys are hiding. Images of people pop up and you have a split second to decide before you shoot – is that a bad guy with a gun or a kid with a lollipop? A crazed terrorist in an explosive vest or a pregnant woman?

Give that test to the No campaign in the marriage equality referendum and they just go Blam! Blam! Blam! They want to shoot their bad guys – gay men and lesbians – but they end up blasting away at everybody else as well. Kill them all and let God sort them out. The big problem for the No campaign is that it can't say what it actually thinks.

The core of that campaign is made up of conservative Christians who sincerely believe that gay men and lesbians should never, ever have sex. This view seems to me to border on the blasphemous, since it suggests that God is a sadist who created people with sexual desires that cannot, under any circumstances, be fulfilled.

If you hold to it, though, same-sex marriage is repellent because it gives social recognition to the idea that a man having sex with a man and a woman having sex with a woman can be normal and moral human acts.

But as a political argument, "Keep your drawers on and pray" doesn't cut it. You have to rationalise your distaste by coming up with some general principle that takes the bare look off mere revulsion. And this is where the No campaign has come to grief. For the general principle it has come up with is one that manages to insult, not just gay men and lesbians, but huge numbers of straight people as well.

That principle is that the Constitution must recognise only those marriages (and hence only those families) that are, in the words of the Catholic primate, Archbishop Eamon Martin, "the union between a man and a woman which is open to life" (ie open to the conception of a child).

I am married to a woman – full marks there. But I had a vasectomy 25 years ago, so our "union" has not been "open to life" for a quarter of a century. We're not a proper family.

My late mother-in-law married again (after the death of her first husband) when she was in her 60s. Her new husband was a delightful man and they were enormously happy together. But they apparently weren't a family either because God in his wisdom invented the menopause and she was not "open to life".

On the other hand, my lovely young niece has two gorgeous little daughters who, apart from everything else, brightened up my mother's last years with the joy of new life. But, sorry, she's not married so she and her babies and her boyfriend are not a family either.

This is the problem with the No campaign. In order to get to the tree it wants to chop down, it has to lay waste to a whole forest. In order to find an apparent principle on which it can reasonably deny equality to gay men and lesbians, it has to tell huge numbers of other people that their relationships are just not up to scratch.

It has set a gold standard for constitutional approval of a family relationship – a man who is not sterile having licensed sex with a woman who is still fertile, with neither of them using contraceptives. (Otherwise their pleasures would not be "open to life".)

It hits the target all right – gay men and lesbians in same-sex couplings don't meet this standard. But it's not an arrow, it's a multibore shotgun. It hits people who were not in its sights – at least not for now.

Any married woman who is using contraceptives or who cannot conceive is not really a proper married woman. Any man who is using contraceptives or who is infertile or who is married to such a woman is not a proper married man. Any single parent with his or her kids is not a family.

Rather amusingly, of course, there is one category of people whose marriages are saved by this definition – divorcees. Divorce, for the same people who are campaigning against same-sex marriage, used to be the abomination that was going to radically redefine marriage and have every fat middle-aged husband cavorting off into the sunset with a young floozy. But apparently, it's okay now – at least up to a point. If you're divorced and remarried and still fertile and not using contraceptives, you are now among the elect type A family of man and woman open to conception every time you have sex.

As a campaign strategy, telling straight people that their relationships are illegitimate is, shall we say, brave. But for most actual couples in Ireland, all of us fallen people whose families fall short of a narrow ideal, it has turned a Yes vote from an act of altruism to one of plain self-interest.

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-keep-your-drawers-on-and-pray-doesn-t-cut-it-1.2208497

[The Iceman]

Could someone on here clear something up for me,

If a man and a woman had no intention of having children, would they still be allowed to get married in a church?

This came up when we got married actually, (not that we were intending not to have children).

You cannot get married in the church if you are not intending to have children.

By that standard they must really interrogate anyone over 50 presenting for marriage.

Just looking for holes to poke Maguire.... pardon the pun