Ireland’s Civil Partnership Bill is now law: President Mary McAleese signed the bill this morning, giving gays “marriage-like benefits to gay and lesbian couples in the areas of property, social welfare, succession, maintenance, pensions and tax.”
happy days
SteveC
Good news. The CP Bill is progress and will help a lot of same sex couples when it relates to next of kin, succession, tax, pensions etc. The Bill is not equality however as it specifically denies the children of gay parents any rights towards their non-biological parents (unlike the situation for the children of parents in heterosexual marriage, where the stepchildren and step-parents do have rights and responsibilities towards each other in case the biological parent dies). Still it’s a stepping stone on the road to full equality so that should be celebrated.
randy
Let’s hope the Irish Day parade in New York will get a clue and start including gays. If the homeland has no problem with us, why shouldn’t the diaspora? We would of course have the best float.
Mike
I’ve found that many Irish-Americans tend to have a warped view of the homeland. They seem surprised that we no longer live in the 1920’s. There’s a March fo Marriage in Dublin on August 22nd this year. Last year’s was huge. The momemtum among the LGBT population in Ireland seems to be behind full marriage equality so the March will be a nice reminder to the political parties that half measures – like Civil Partnerships – are not going to cut it in the long run.
Chargers
Mike- That’s true about some Irish-Americans, but certainly not the ones who have visited Ireland in the last 20 years. I think the more relevant related story here is how much American gays hate both the Irish and Irish-Americans, and has that changed as times develop as well…?
peteNsfo
@Chargers: If you think THAT’s the more relevant story… then I believe that you really think gay people reserve some kind of extra disgust of the Irish… they don’t.
C’mon, man- gay people react to prejudice & ignorance, not Irish heritage. I’m completely of Irish-decent, and the most vocal homophobes are US born.
Get a clue, already.
Chargers
PeteNsfo : YOU have to get a clue (and I say that respectfully, because I don’t want to fight with you). In NYC, especially, it’s almost gay-law that gays are supposed to hate anyone of Irish blood. Very much the same for Boston. There have been several theories for why this is true, but whatever the reason….it’ll be interesting to see if that changes or not as well.