We are on the train travelling from Portlaoise to Dublin. I’m reading the new Attica Locke book; the Australian is reading an article on his laptop. When I look up, he mouths the words “I love you” and I lean over and kiss him. The train is full, and sitting opposite us are two older women, one in her fifties and her mother, who looks to be in her late seventies. They smile at us. Later, when we pull into Heuston Station, they wish us a good long weekend.
It’s a rainy and cold Saturday in early May, and we cower under the Luas shelter waiting for the tram into town. He puts his arm around me to keep me warm. Today the bus drivers are on strike, so we walk hand in hand from Abbey Street to Stephen’s Green to catch the Green Line to Ranelagh. By the time we get to Rathmines, we are cold and wet and bedraggled, so we stop for coffee and cake. In the coffee shop, he reaches across the table and holds my hand.
It’s only later, when we are talking about the upcoming referendum on same sex marriage that it strikes me just how privileged we are – everywhere we go, we can be physically affectionate without any fear of repercussion. We don’t have to think about it, which is the very definition of privilege – we expect that the world will accommodate our relationship and it does.
Many of you will have seen Panti’s Noble Call speech at the Abbey. In the speech, Panti aka Rory O’Neill talks about being on a crowded train with his best gay friend and cringing a little because his friend is being “so gay.” On a crowded train, with one of my best straight friends, my lover and partner, I don’t ever have to worry that we are being “so straight” or that people will react negatively – or worse, aggressively – because we are two people in a romantic and sexual relationship. Sure, many people dislike happy couples “washing their clean linen in public” as Oscar Wilde put it. But the worst we can expect is an eye-roll from friends or perhaps a teenager shouting “Get a room!” as a joke. No-one is going to accuse us of being flamboyantly heterosexual or of forcing our sexuality in their face; we never have to check ourselves at a pedestrian crossing, as Rory does, wondering what gives our sexuality away; more importantly, we are never going to be victims of a hate crime simply because we are straight.
By the time you read this, it will be the middle of May, about a week before referendum day. I hope that you are all registered to vote, and that when you do vote, you do the right thing – and vote yes. At its core the referendum is asking a very simple question: do we all deserve the same rights and privileges under the law or not? Among right-thinking people, there is only one answer to that question.
The No campaign has tried to muddy the waters by confusing the right to marry with issues such as adoption and surrogacy, neither of which have anything to do with marriage equality. Single people, whether straight or gay, are legally allowed to adopt children and the Children and Family Relationships Bill, which was signed into law this April gives cohabiting couples and civil partners full adoption rights.
Surrogacy is a thorny legal issue no matter what angle you approach it from. Currently, the birth mother is regarded as the mother of any children that are born in Ireland, whether or not she has a biological relationship to the child. Health Minister Leo Varadkar has stated that the laws regarding infertility treatments and surrogacy need to be addressed, but that commercial surrogacy is to be banned in the State. Whatever one’s feelings about this issue, it is important to remember that the vast majority of people wishing to access these services are heterosexual. It has nothing specific to do with same sex marriage.
I have not heard a coherent argument from the No side, just fear- mongering that marriage equality will “redefine marriage” which will somehow sever the relationship between parents and children and lead to the collapse of society as
we know it. I don’t doubt that there are well-meaning people planning to vote no because they have been confused by these arguments, or by the idea that a marriage between one man and one woman is “natural” and anything else is either unnatural or immoral. But they would do well to remember that arguments about what is “natural” or “unnatural” are often used to mask ideology.
It was not that long ago that unmarried sex was regarded as immoral; women, in particular, who engaged in pre-marital sex were believed to corrupt men and threaten the fabric of society. A few generations ago, an unmarried woman, such as myself, engaging in a sexual relationship could have been locked up in a psychiatric institution for sexual immorality. Even more recently, if I had had a child out of wedlock – always a risk in country where contraception was banned – I could have been shunned by my family, forced to emigrate, or been held captive in one of the infamous Magdalene Laundries. A national survey in 1973-1974 found that three out of four people thought sex outside marriage was always wrong. In 2015, my unmarried partner and I can check into a hotel and be given
a room with a double bed, as we did in Portlaoise on the Friday night, without anyone batting an eyelid.
In South Africa where I grew up, it was illegal for two people of different races to engage in a consensual sexual relationship or marry until 1985. It was argued that it was natural for people to be attracted to, have sex with, and marry others of the same race. Any relationship that crossed the colour line was seen as unnatural or exploitative or both. Mixed race couples were tracked and arrested by the police, but the punishment was particularly severe for a black man engaging in a sexual relationship with a white woman – not only would he be arrested and tried under the Immorality Act, it was very likely he would be charged with rape as well.
Racism is unfortunately not confined to the southern tip of Africa. In My Boy, Philomena Lynott, described the abuse she received in the 1950s for being the mother of amixed race child – the incomparable Irish rock legend Phil Lynott. Prejudice has not gone away – the 2010 Miss Ireland Emma Waldron experienced online abuse when it became known she was dating a man from Nigeria. But most people rightly regard such attitudes as archaic, racist and pathetic to boot.
The law is a powerful instrument for changing the way we think. It’s twenty-two years since Ireland decriminalised homosexuality, and it would have seemed impossible in the mid-1990s that we could ever be in a position to vote on marriage equality for all our citizens. If the referendum passes, then yes, gay and lesbian couples will be entitled to marry and that is an important step forward. However, if it just squeaks by, then LGBT people will know that every second person they encounter sees them as deserving less rights – and that is a terrible burden to bear.
Much has been written about the fact that in this particular instance, Ireland’s constitution gives the majority the chance to decide on the rights of a minority, and while I am uncomfortable with that, it is also an opportunity to declare unequivocally that all of us, whatever our sexual orientation, are equal citizens. That’s why I don’t want just a victory – I want a resounding, overwhelming victory because of what this will say about us as a nation.
Marriage equality will represent an important step forward, which will have a direct impact on the lives of people who have long been marginalised – but changing hearts and minds to remake our society as a more open, welcoming, fair and equal place is the real prize for us all. And I don’t want that in ten or fifteen years when this referendum is history. I want it now. I want to live in an Ireland where any two people can kiss on a crowded train, and have a fifty- omething woman and her mother wish them well.