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In Pursuit of Marriage Equality in Ireland: a Narrative and Theoretical Reflection

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In Pursuit of Marriage Equality in Ireland: a Narrative and Theoretical Reflection 111 In Pursuit of Marriage Equality in Ireland: A Narrative and Theoretical Reflection Katherine Zappone1 1. Kick-starting the Irish Debate on Mar- - riage Equality plishments and our failures. We committed ourselvesour fears, ourto eachfinancial other resources, and we ourdiscovered accom With the introduction of a civil union law unimaginable joy. in the world to recognise legally same-sex We moved to Ireland in 1983 where Ann Lou- relationships.in 1989, Denmark2 Nordic became countries the first followed country ise re-assumed her teaching position at Dub- suit with similar laws and a global debate lin City University. In 1995 I had the privilege ensued about same-sex relationship rec- of becoming an Irish citizen and so now hold dual USA and Irish citizenship. The European country to make civil marriage available to and global debate on relationship recognition same-sexognition. couplesThe Netherlands in April 2001. was3 Whilethe first the had not reached Ireland at this stage. This UK extended the Civil Partnership Act 2004 lack of debate was a part of the context with- to Northern Ireland in 2005, the Republic of in which we later made the decision to take Ireland continued to ignore same-sex rela- what was to become a landmark legal case for tionships in its laws. When my spouse, Dr. the recognition of our relationship. Ann Louise Gilligan, and I sought to have our Canadian marriage recognised through 2. Ireland and Homosexuality the Irish courts we sprung to international attention and kick-started the domestic de- Ireland is a constitutional democracy based bate in Ireland on the legal recognition of on its 1937 constitution. This constitution same-sex relationships. - lic mind-set of its time and has undergone Ann Louise, an Irish citizen, and I have relevantlywas reflective little of reform the conservative since it came Catho into shared a parternership for the past 30 years. force. In 1977, Senator David Norris initi- We met in Boston College when we both ated a case to decriminalise homosexuality. started a PhD programme together. She came At the time, homosexual relations between from Dublin and I came from New York City, men were prohibited by law.4 Norris argued though I am originally from Seattle. A year that his constitutional right to privacy was after we met, in 1982, we gathered a small violated. In 1980 the Irish High Court ruled group of friends to celebrate with us a life- against him. In 1983, the Supreme Court, by partnership ceremony. That day we found laws did not contravene the Constitution, and life-long cherishing of each other into havinga three-to-two regard to majority, the Christian affirmed nature that of the theour future.voice toWe proclaim promised a to promise share our of dreams,fidelity state, the immorality of the deliberate prac- The Equal Rights Review, Vol. Ten (2013) 112 tice of homosexuality, the damage that such Irish Constitution as well as those laid out practices cause to the health of citizens and in international treaties that the Irish state the potential harm to the institution of mar- is party to. Under the Agreement the gov- riage.5 Senator Norris, with the assistance ernment in the Republic is also obliged to of future Irish President, Mary Robinson take steps to further strengthen the protec- (his senior counsel at the time) then took tion of human rights within its jurisdiction. the case to the European Court of Human The Agreement stipulates that any meas- Rights. Norris won the case in 1988 with a ures brought forward “would ensure at least judgment that Irish laws contravened Arti- an equivalent level of protection of human cle 8 of the Convention for the Protection of rights as will pertain in Northern Ireland”.10 Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) (the right to respect for private UK and Northern Ireland, at the turn of the and family life).6 millennium,When civil unions the debate were hadfirst little mooted impact in theon through the campaigning of a national non- discourse in the Republic. Few questions governmental organisation It took five calledyears –Gay largely and were raised around equivalence of rights Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN) – to get south of the border in the context of the Good the laws changed to decriminalise homo- Friday Agreement. sexual behaviour in 1993.7 The explicit issue of partnership rights for Coming to a more recent context, Ireland - prides itself on its robust equality legislation cal agenda with the publication of a report introduced in the late 1990s and early twen- bysame-sex Ireland’s couples statutory first body, came the onto Equality the politi Au- thority.11 The Equality Authority gathered a within the civic sphere (lobbying and cam- group of civil servants and representatives of paigningty-first century. by a number In light ofof equalityeffective groups)activity NGOs to produce a report which argued that and various government-sponsored reports, Irish laws should be amended to extend part- Ireland enacted comprehensive equality leg- nership rights to same-sex couples. This was islation. This focused on equal pay; protec- followed by another report of the National tion in employment and against harassment; Economic and Social Forum (established by and protection for the equal provision of statute) of civil servants, NGOs and politi- goods, services, accommodation and edu- cians, which came to similar conclusions and cation across nine grounds: gender, marital made similar recommendations.12 However, status, family status, sexual orientation, re- neither report went as far as to recommend ligious belief, age, race, disability and mem- directly any form of legal recognition of part- bership of the traveller community.8 nership between same-sex couples. While the National Economic and Social Forum’s In 1998 the Good Friday Agreement was report did argue that extending rights to signed in Belfast. This established the North- same-sex couples such as the right to nomi- ern Ireland Assembly with devolved legisla- nate a partner, pension and next of kin rights tive powers and a power-sharing executive. would have a profound impact on achieving Under the agreement national human rights equality, it also said that: institutions were established in both North- ern Ireland and the Republic.9 The govern- “It was the strong view of the Team that ment in the Republic is obliged to promote State recognition of these partnerships was and protect human rights as laid out in the not essential for the Government to make The Equal Rights Review, Vol. Ten (2013) 113 progress in relation to implementing greater the property and inheritance rights afforded equality for LGB people.”13 to married couples and that the Equality Au- thority’s group had endorsed similar chang- 3. Taking a Case for Marriage Equality es in the law.14 This was the context and backdrop, then, Over the next two years you could count on against which Ann Louise and I began to con- one hand the number of articles published in template the possibility of taking a legal case that same newspaper on this topic. With the to have our relationship recognised. While knowledge we had about the very tenuous we were both active within the civic sphere relationship between recommendations in in relation to many human rights issues, es- policy documents and subsequent, substan- pecially those related to the poverty and eco- tive change, we discerned that little was go- nomic inequalities in the lives of Irish people, ing to happen unless there was a grass-roots we had no involvement in LGBT (Lesbian, mobilisation to bring pressure to bear on Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) rights work. lawmakers or some kind of legal challenge The personal origins of our case began late within the courts. This is how things had in 2001 – after 19 years of life-partnership – been changed in other jurisdictions and so when an impending visit to Chile prompted we assessed that the same would be true for a visit to our solicitor to update our wills. Ireland. In April 2002, we took a decision to We jointly owned our home, and we also jointly owned another property together. and wrote to the Equality Authority to see We thought it would be wise to organise our iffind they a pathcould to help legalise us to ourdiscern life-partnership what might affairs just in case anything happened to us be the best possible route. In the meantime I during our time abroad. What we discovered met a couple of times with members of GLEN that day was that, unlike married couples who were working on a bill for “domestic who jointly own property, we could not will partnership” legislation that they hoped the half of our property to the other upon death independent senator, David Norris, would of one of us without major capital acquisition bring into our parliament.15 Unfortunately taxation implications. Effectively, the surviv- the bill in question read more like a proposal ing partner would have to sell the property for a business contract between two people in order to pay the tax; what we thought was who co-habit, something which did not at nor did there appear to be any mobilisation Onfinancial that securityday we wasstarted clearly on not. a long road behindall reflect the the effort. nature Further, of our Norris’ life-partnership, independ- through the valley of fear. One of the primary ence as a Senator – as distinct from being a reasons that we eventually decided to take a member of government – did not place him case was because of the public silence about in a strong position to get such a bill enacted. partnership recognition between same-sex Consequently, Ann Louise and I decided to couples in Ireland.
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