Church concern ahead of historic gay-marriage vote

THE ARCHBISHOP of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has warned that a vote in favour of legalising gay marriage in Ireland risks the understanding of the family and the stability of society.

A “yes” vote in the referendum, due to be held yesterday, would make Ireland the first country in the world to approve same-sex marriage by popular ballot.

Archbishop Martin has said he intends to vote “no” in the referendum though he declines to tell people how to vote and makes a case for “reasoned argument” on the question.

In an article in The Irish Times on Tuesday, the archbishop stressed that a reasoned “no” vote was not homophobic and did not deny that gay and lesbian people can be good parents. But he argued that “marriage, family, children and society fundamentally form one reality and cannot be torn apart.
“In a society where individual personal fulfilment can become so dominant, every other argument can be laid to the side and we can come to the conclusion that there are so many concrete manifestations of family that it is no longer even possible to speak of family,” wrote the archbishop.

He predicted that the courts would be left to interpret the constitution with test cases possibly producing unexpected results.

A majority voting “yes” in the referendum would ratify the Marriage Equality Bill 2015 passed by the Dáil, the Irish ­parliament, in March.

Bishop Martin Drennan of Galway in his pastoral statement read out at Masses last Sunday warned: “It will become increasingly difficult to speak or teach in public about marriage as being between a man and a woman.”

His concern was echoed by Bishop Kevin Doran of Elphin who said he was worried about what teachers “might be expected to teach our children”.

The anti-gay marriage campaign group, Mothers and Fathers Matter, has raised concerns over the legislation’s impact on children if surrogacy is legislated for in Ireland. The chairman of the Referendum Commission, Mr Justice Kevin Cross, told RTE this week that the referendum was not about adoption or surrogacy.

But a spokesman for Mothers and Fathers Matter said this  contradicted his previous comment on surrogacy, that if the referendum passes it would be “difficult to image” preference in law for a child to have a mother and father.