Some of Ireland’s legislators are congratulating themselves for today passing a same-sex civil partnership bill, which grants many rights and benefits to gays, including things like “succession rights, protection of a home that a couple shares, plus maintenance rights in the event of a separation.” Also: “Once a civil partnership is registered, the couple will be dealt with in the same way as a married couple by the Revenue Commissioners. It will also extend those rights to other forms of long-term relationships. Unmarried opposite-sex couples will be allowed to register, as will those in non-sexual relations, such as siblings who live together, or cohabiting companions.” It does not, however, consider them to be full-blown marriages.
You can imagine how well this sits with gay marriage advocates.
HayYall
Didn’t they just legalize divorce like 30 years ago? I think it’s pretty amazing they went through with civil unions.
dgz
for the most catholic country in the world, this is actually pretty good. i think abortions are also still illegal, and divorce requires 6 months of marital counseling before the petition is granted… or something like that.
darek
DEFINATELY GOOD ENOUGH…for now at least. Christ Jesus these people are some of the most devote catholics in the world and THEY’VE legalized a form of same-sex marriage that in ten years could be upgraded to full blown marriage rights? CONGRATS IRELAND, YOU’RE AN EXAMPLE TO THE WORLD!
Sthlib
Ireland’s legislature did not pass the bill, it was just “published”, or introduced, by the Irish Minister for Justice, and in the final days of the session, too. Something like this does not pass quickly!
Reuters’ reporting was poor, see this Irish Times story: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0626/breaking34.htm
dgz
@Sthlib: it wasn’t passed?!? then i have no hope of this getting through the Dail.
Maurice
The bill has only just been published and the parliament (Dáil) is going on summer recess so we’re looking at the end of the year before this travesty of a piece of legislation gets passed.
While I’m sure there are some people in Ireland for whom any kind of gay rights will be very important, it’s typical of the wasters in our government to come up with this half assed hackery. Especially when you consider that the Minister for Justice, the man charged with implementing this legislation, when homosexuality was about to be decriminalised in 1993,once agreed fully with the statement from a constituency colleague (Brendan McGahon) who said “homosexuals as being in a sad category, but I believe homosexuality to be an abnormality, some type of psycho-sexual problem that has defied explanation over the years. I do not believe that the Irish people desire this normalisation of what is clearly an abnormality.” Our Minister for Justice’s response to this was “I do not often find myself in agreement with my constituency colleague, Deputy McGahon, but on this occasion I am[..]Will we eventually see the day in this country when, as has happened in the USA, homosexuals will seek the right to adopt children? We should think seriously about this possibility.”
Bill Perdue
Civil unions and civil partnerships, unless they are the norm for everyone, are a fraud that condemns us to second class citizenship and promotes the interests of the christer cults.
The kind of law we should aim for is one that creates civil partnerships, easy dispartnership, state and parental guarantees for children, an end of cult interference in civil partnering and one that gives the same financial rights and tax breaks to single persons who choose not to partner.
Priests, pastors and other pulpit pimps should not have the power to marry, join, or partner people at all. If they lose that income maybe they’ll be encouraged to get real jobs and be productive citizens. But I doubt it. They’re a good-for-nothing sluggish lot.
mb00
@dgz: I was just gonna say that. I think it’s pretty good progress to say the least. Way to go Ireland.
Hannah
Did any of you read the article? The children of civil unions will only be seen as having one parent. The other partner cannot adopt his/her partner’s child(ren). That’s gonna be a mess of its own.
Irish Eoin
The ban on divorce was removed in 1993 by way of a referendum – 50.28% yes – 49.72% no. Ireland is a conservative country – right of centre government. But things are changing – over 12.000 gays marched through the capital in the biggest and brightest gay pride parade in the history of the sate.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0628/breaking12.htm
Homosexuality was only decriminalized in 1993 – disgraceful!
galefan2004
So in essence, its not good enough because the word isn’t marriage. It seems like they just gave every right they give to married people to those in civil unions, but because the word they used wasn’t marriage people are upset about it. I personally would welcome such a law in the United States and be done with it. The majority of the people I’ve talked to worry much more about their rights and much less about the name applied to them.
galefan2004
@Bill Perdue: You are so completely out of touch. Those that you insult and claim have no real jobs are on call 24/7. They work their asses off to appease their congregations. I’m willing to say that their hours in per week are about double yours. Maybe it is you that needs to get a real job. While I’m not necessarily fond of religion, and I definitely don’t accept religious based homophobia this is a place you absolutely need to check yourself. Hell, the pastor of the most open church in my area just took a year without pay and worked every day anyways because the church couldn’t afford to pay him and build their new building.
galefan2004
@Hannah: I would say that it isn’t going to be that difficult to find people even within our own gay community that don’t believe that gays should parent children. Its not the most popular issue. For instance, people aren’t even fighting for it as a cause in the United States right now.
bobito
@Irish Eoin: disgraceful, indeed. And it was decriminalized in all 50 states of the US by a Supreme Court decision in… 2003.
galefan2004
@bobito: Homosexuality itself was never criminalized in the United States. The people arrested for homosexuality were arrested under public health warrants because the APA had it listed as a mental disorder. It was taken off of the list of mental disorders in (I believe) 1969.
In 2003, the USSC ruled to overturn laws against sodomy. That included all forms of sodomy by its traditional definition (basically any sex that wasn’t penal/vaginal including oral) regardless of the couple involved (sodomy laws on the books applied to both gay/lesbian and straight couples). The over turn of these laws also had nothing to do with gay rights. They were over turned because the USSC decided that the government does not have the power to regulate sexual behavior between two consenting adults in the privacy of their own homes.
DuttyBarb
Bill Perdue
As i do not normally use swear words..please excuse me. WHAT KIND OF DUMB ASS-RY IS THAT???
Ireland is a Catholic country. As you live in that blissful state of dumb ass, im not sure you understand the implication of that so ill explain it to you.
The Catholic Church does not approve of homosexuality, right? It does not want anything to do with this at all that it would rather close down its adoption agencies than give a gay couple a child. Pretty drastic huh? What does that imply to you? They have gone out on a limb here for you guys so why don’t you be happy
Civil partnerships is not marriage and is what you people need considering as you are not following the normal pattern for marriage. It has the same rights bequeathed to normal marriage so what is your damage exactly?
Think about how far gays will go in the US if they accepted this type of arrangement.
Insulting clergymen, priests..wow that’s mature and implying religion is a cult..hmm is there any wonder why after 40 years since Stonewall gays do not still ave any useful rights and wont for the foreseeable future? I mean this “cult” sure is powerful isn’t it? You dumb dumb man.
bobito
@galefan2004: It’s a fair cop. Technically, everything you say is true. But I don’t recall any cases of heterosexual couples being prosecuted under any state’s anti-sodomy laws. And having state laws against “basically any sex that wasn’t penal/vaginal” implies an inherent criminalization of any couple not in possession of both a penis and a vagina.
Because these state laws involved EVERYBODY’s sexuality, the Supreme Court almost had no choice but to overturn them – the repercussions of the court deciding otherwise would have been overwhelming. But the people who were most affected by the decision were same-sex couples who now had the right to shag in the privacy of their own homes without the fear of legal prosecution (assuming of course that they were consenting adults).
galefan2004
@DuttyBarb: Is the forseeable future a reference to how far you can see past your nose. ENDA will pass. DADT repeal will pass. UAFA will eventually pass (although it might take longer). They will all pass in the next 1-2 years. That is a lot of rights given to us in the forseeable future as far as I am concerned. DOMA is going to take awhile. People’s minds are changing. They realize we aren’t going anywhere, and eventually they will stop fighting. As more and more people get to know gay people and become accepting of them, the religious right loses more and more people. The religious right is the group that is shrinking quickly not the gay/lesbian and ally movement.
galefan2004
@bobito: I personally can’t remember a case (outside of right wing nut case Texas that last time I checked still wants to succeed from the union) that anyone has been tried on anti-sodomy laws in this country in my life time. Hell, the first bath houses were opened 30 years before this law was over turned, and because bath houses are public institutions they are open to public investigation when the concept of any law breaking occurs. There are literally thousands of laws on the books in every state in this country that have never been overturned that people break every single day that are not enforced.
strumpetwindsock
@DuttyBarb:
The Republic of Ireland is a democratic country, actually.
The only catholic country I am aware of is Vatican City.
@galefan2004:
I thought the sodomy laws were the de facto laws which criminalized gay sex, at least in most western countries. They just rarely applied them to straights.
galefan2004
@strumpetwindsock: They rarely applied them in general except when it was a public incident. The police departments in this country pretty much refused to enforce them unless they absolutely had to. They simply were not breaking down doors to throw people in jail for sodomy. All sodomy was illegal, but the laws had been enforced very sparingly in the last 30 years anyways. The case that made it to the USSC in 2003 was from Texas, and I believe it was a case that was against an anti-sodomy law being applied to a gay couple in Texas that were either in a public place or were in a position where the police had another reason to be there. I’m not arguing that they didn’t criminalize gay sex (and straight sex as well). That was never my intent. I’m arguing that they didn’t criminalize homosexuality (although sex is definitely a part of homosexuality it in now way is the whole).
galefan2004
@galefan2004: The whole set of laws was so hypocritical it was pathetic anyways. I’m willing to bet that every man in this country gay or straight has broken the anti-sodomy law at some point as the way it was written. Any man that has received oral sex or fucked his dudes/chicks ass has broken it. Any man or woman that has ever given oral sex or been fucked has broken it. So in general, like most great laws of the time period it was written, it criminalizes dirty girls and gays.
galefan2004
@galefan2004: And by saying great law I am being sarcastic and implying that at that time period the vast majority of laws were made for men to pass judgment on people they deemed unacceptable.
strumpetwindsock
@galefan2004:
Technically you are right, and many of us are aware that the law criminalized the act (which most straights commit as well), not homosexuality itself.
One could also argue that many segregation laws persecute everyone, including whites, since they limited our actions too, but I think it is pretty clear the law was applied primarily against black people.
Likewise, the sodomy laws were on the books to instill fear and the threat of arrest and exposure. They were actively used and working, even if charges were rarely laid.
TANK
They simply were not breaking down doors to throw people in jail for sodomy.
In my country, the united states, cops were breaking down doors to enforce the sodomy laws in many states. IT was rather common, actually. Next, this stunning fool will tell you that homophobia didn’t exist in the u.s. until stonewall.
Bill Perdue
@galefan2004:
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Religion is no more than superstition and codified ignorance dressed up in its Sunday best. People who make a living at selling superstition and codified ignorance are all unproductive. Many of them are criminals. The thing that many priests work hardest at, in Ireland and the US, is raping altar boys and ripping off cult funds.
I’ve known one or two ‘radical’ priests who supported Central American independence movements but at their best they were lukewarm radicals. And I know of couple of ex-priests who both regret wasting part of their lives keeping their bishop and the super bigots in Rome well fed by fleecing their parishioners.
They’d describe you as naive and rather stupid.
Your pretense of being critical of the parasitism and criminality of priests, imams, pastors, rabbis, mullahs and similar vermin rings as hollow as your posing as a critic of Obama’s bigotry. In the real world you’re a simple-minded apologist for bigotry, criminality and parasitism.
Poor you.
Stanley James
Not clear if this is now law, or simply a bill of rights put before the Irish Parliment.
But it is a start.
And the otherthing everyone needs to start spreading is the true story of the “christian brothers”, a catholic group that runs reform schools and orphanages in Ireland. Over a large number of years, they worked kids half to death in freezing factories making of all things religious symbols, fed them imadequately, and abused them physically and mentally. It seemed like $175 Million in damages has been paid out, and expectations are 10x that.
Yup, if youve heard of the US abuses – which essentially amounted to prison rape – sex starved priests raping choir boys (there were no choir girls till recently as handy victims) to establish their power and authority. Just like in prison, the most male macho types rape the weak to establish the power structure amongst the prisoners. And the church hid these crimes for decades, moving the guilty priests to other places, and letting them continue their vile crimes. Prob becaause they needed their soldiers (priests) to keep the hynotic control of the flock. And it sure sounds like the rot goes all the way to the top.
The mission of the church is supposed to be to care for the sick and dying, feed the poor etc.
But it has been totally corrupted, and even more so under the Razi-Nazi pope, to a mission of control, intimidation, lies, and always having a group to hate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/20/irish-reform-schools-thou_n_205719.html
Spread this far and wide……………………
Paschal
The bill is yet to pass bit it would be unbelievable if it weren’t to pass. It has strong support from all parties in the Oireachtas (legislature). Ireland isn’t as conservative as you may think. It’s nowhere near as religious as it once was as well. Ireland’s anti-homosexuality law (which applied only to males) wasn’t enforced for adult consensual sex for some years before it was finally repealed. The law was repealed after a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (which belongs to tht Council of Europe). A ruling at that time by the court wasn’t enforcable without the Irish government agreeing to change the law. In more recent years the government is obliged to seek changes to the law if needed. One couls argue, however, that the court rulings still aren’t enforcable. Ireland’s current president and the president before that have both worked for gay rights in the past. Our first female president, Mary Robinson, was actually part of the group which challenged Ireland’s anti-gay law. Our most recent president, Mary McAleese, was part of the same group later. The President of Ireland isn’t powerful (we’ve a similar political system to Canada) but is a popular figure.
Emmet
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/0907/1224278353743.html Read that article it shows the flaws in the civil union bill ! It’s not granting the same rights as a married opposite sex couple, and its far from being “equal”.
Yooooo
@dgz: Ireland is not the most Catholic country in the world. That would probably be the Vatican. Your comment is quite ignorant.
Since 1972, Ireland has been a secular country – unfortunately probably with the exception of France and Turkey, no matter how secular a country is, religious leaders keep interfering.
I grew up in Ireland, I am gay and I am not Catholic. The Catholic Church has never affected my life in any way. For some reason when I am abroad it is always people from other nationalities, particularly French and British who start stupid conversations about religion and then tell me that they are secular. It makes me laugh and cringe at the same time.
According to surveys, there is practically no resistance to civil unions and what’s more a firm majority support gay marraige. It seems that the government is quite behind on this issue and even though I come from the countryside, I have never met an Irish person who is against gay rights – that is not to say that they don’t exist. My own personal experiences however have been homophobic and Catholic free thankfully.