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Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Partnership bill is a civil issue
By Fr Brendan Hoban
AFTER all the excitement of the Stag hunting vote in the Dáil, when the government for a time seemed in danger of collapse and when, after threats and counter-threats, deputies from two parties lost ‘the whip’, the passage of the Civil Partnership Bill a few days later seemed a most civilized affair indeed.
While passions were high about the morality or otherwise of hunting the innocent stag – and the stress and trauma that experience produced for the harassed animal – the consensus in the Dáil surrounding the civil partnership bill was such that no vote was necessary.
Even though all participants in the debate accepted that the legislation was ‘groundbreaking’, the bill was passed on ‘the nod.’ After a decade of debate when opinion polls consistently indicated that the measure was acceptable and necessary – on occasion up to 84 per cent of those surveyed agreed – cross party agreement in both houses of the Oireachtas followed as the politicians took their cue from the people. No one is expecting that the sky will fall in.
Civil partnership is not ‘gay marriage’ and from the outset in the debate it was clear that the Government had no stomach for going down the ‘gay marriage’ road. Even though gay groups argued stringently for gay marriage to be legalised, they agreed that the civil partnership legislation provided much that they had campaigned for over the years.
Fundamentally the bill will allow adults in same-sex relationships to have their relationships recognised and the provisions of the bill extend protection to areas like pensions, maintenance, rights to a shared home, taxation, tenancies, next of kin status, taxation and social welfare. In terms of the law it extends civil protection to all couples, including heterosexual couples, who are in partnerships.
Anecdotal evidence suggested that, at times of death for instance, gay partners often found themselves in invidious positions, excluded from the grieving and with no rights in law in terms of property, pensions, etc. The new bill would seem to be intended as a house-keeping measure, intended to tidy up perceived anomalies in civil partnerships.
Not everyone agreed. The Irish bishops worried that the bill will undermine marriage; others felt that it was an attack on religion; and more sought to have ‘a conscience clause’ inserted so that civil servants could not be forced to participate in civil partnership ‘ceremonies’. And a few regretted that ‘Catholic politicians’ seemed to leave their religion outside the door of their Dáil chamber.
However, efforts to argue for these positions seemed unconvincing. It is clear that what is envisaged as ‘civil partnership’ is not marriage (as all participants in the debate are agreed), doesn’t undermine the institution of marriage and is not, in any sense, a ‘religious’ event. It is, in effect, a civil arrangement, regulating an area of life that up to now was unregulated. And a conscience clause, while seeming to be a reasonable, even innocuous demand, seems impractical and unworkable.
What fuelled the debate was a general recognition that Church and State are separate and that while the Church must preach the message of the Gospel of Jesus and attempt to live it authentically, the state has the task of enacting laws for all its citizens.
A feature of the debate was the rejection or rather the ignoring of the arguments offered by the Irish Catholic bishops in a recent statement. Their reservations about the civil partnership bill had no impact on the debate, not least because their authority, for very obvious reasons, is at such a low ebb.
What was worrying however was the rejection by some, notably Green politicians, of the bishops’ right to express their opinion.
John Gormley, a Government minister, relieved himself of the opinion that Irish Catholic Church leaders should “concentrate their efforts on looking after the spiritual needs of the flock and not intrude on temporal or State matters”.
Gormley went on to suggest that he “thought we had left the era of Church interference behind”.
It was a silly thing to say. It’s very difficult to argue, on the one hand, for a pluralist Ireland and, on the other, to tell those whose opinions you don’t like that they have no right to participate in the debate. A case of wanting your cake and eating it.
What made Gormley’s assertion even more bizarre was his short and convenient memory. Two years ago at the time of the Lisbon Treaty referendum, the Government exerted extreme pressure on the Irish Catholic Bishops to come out in favour of Lisbon. As right-wing religious pressure groups were making all kinds of outrageous assertions about the possible effects of the Lisbon Treaty – none of which, unsurprisingly, has yet come to pass – the Irish Bishops eventually relented to the pressure from the Government and the wider ‘Yes’ camp and issued a statement. Gormley’s position now seems to be that the Government should decide when the Irish bishops speak or don’t speak or when they do that they follow a Government line.
If that were said to any other group in Irish society it would be greeted with the derision it deserves but, in present circumstances, of course it’s open season on the Irish Catholic Church.
Meanwhile, another milestone has been reached in the difficult transition to a very different world.
There will be repercussions, as there always are, when social legislation is passed and indications are that while gay couples will take advantage of the civil partnership bill, the implications for unmarried heterosexual couples will be significant too.
Couples who are not married – same sex or opposite sex – and who have lived together for five years, at the end of a relationship can apply to the courts for redress that can include a transfer of property, a lump sum, periodic payments and even a share in the other person’s pension.
The devil, as we say, can be in the detail.
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