Sheila O’Flanagan: Love is love, whether for a heterosexual or homosexual couple

Most good novels are about relationships between people. So are most good movies. And most memorable songs. We read and watch and sing about our relationships because they are so important to us. They are the bedrock of our lives. We need other people – to share our happy experiences, to support us in difficult times, to understand us, to love us and to be loved by us.

Finding the person who loves you and is loved by you is both a privilege and a joy. Deciding that you want to be with each other forever and make a statement of the bond you share is a life-affirming moment. Whether you are a heterosexual couple or a homosexual couple, the love is the same. You experience the same feeling that you would do anything for that person. Of wanting to support them. Wanting them to be happy. Wanting nothing but the best for them. A man and a woman. Two men. Two women. The emotions are no different.

Love is love.

And so why would anyone want to say to another person that the love they share with their partner is less worthy of being recognised as any other? Why would you want to deny them the opportunity of having the same recognition of their relationship as you have yourself? The same joy? The same contentment? The same legal rights and security? Why would you look your gay son or daughter in the eye and say “I’m sorry. You might love your partner but it’s not as good as the love I have with your mother or father. I won’t go to your wedding. I don’t love you enough.”

I’m voting Yes in the marriage equality referendum because human beings are lucky to be able to love. And if you have been lucky enough to find a person who loves you and you want to marry, then I can see no reason why I, or anyone else, should stop you.

Knowing that somebody else is happy, and knowing that they feel secure in a marriage that acknowledges their love for each other, doesn’t diminish my own happiness with the man I love, or the strength of my own marriage. Surely it is a joy for us all to have happy, stable marriages strengthening our communities?

It saddens me to hear people say that the passing of the marriage equality referendum will lessen their own marriage. Nothing and nobody can lessen what you have. Allowing other people to have what you have, allowing them to share that joy, should enhance not diminish the status of marriage.

For those who are making it an issue about children – it is always right to be concerned about the future of our children. But it is precisely so that our gay children do not feel lesser citizens in our country that it is important to vote Yes. It’s hard enough feeling different without feeling that your difference marks you out as undeserving.

Women were considered undeserving of the vote in Ireland until nearly 100 years ago. Their participation in the State workforce was considered inappropriate until 1973 when the civil service marriage bar was lifted. The attitudes that underpinned women as being somehow lesser citizens took time to change, but nobody now would consider it right that a woman should not have a say in electing public representatives, or work in a State body.

The gay community in Ireland are not lesser citizens. Approving marriage equality will not diminish the citizens in the straight community. We all live in the one country. We all want to live happy and fulfilling lives. We all love the same. We should all be able to get married the same too.

Sheila O’Flanagan is a best-selling author