Groups to protest Civil Partnership Bill

Equality groups are to hold simultaneous rallies tomorrow in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Waterford to protest at the Government’s proposal for a Civil Partnership Bill.

The Civil Partnership Bill, announced this week, would give gay and lesbian couples greater rights and control over pensions, inheritance and tax, although it would not allow same-sex couples to marry nor adopt.

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said gay marriage would run foul of the Constitution.

The Cabinet cleared the heads of the legislation last Tuesday, and a full Bill should be ready to go before the Houses of the Oireachtas in six months and to be law within about a year.

But gay-marriage campaign group LGBT Noise, which is organising tomorrow's protests, said that a “limited registration scheme “is not good enough for Ireland’s gay and lesbian people in 2008.

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said gay marriage would run foul of the Constitution

The group dismissed the proposal as “derisory and limited” and said it will use the rallies to call on the Government “to do the right thing first time round by lifting the ban on civil marriage for gay and lesbian people”.

Noise member Mark McCarron said: “This scheme would pigeon-hole gay couples into a separate, inferior system of recognition. It perpetuates the outdated view that gay and lesbian relationships are somehow not as worthy as those of their heterosexual counterparts.”

The Union of Students in Ireland (USI), which is supporting the protests, called for the “human right of marriage” for gay and lesbian people.

USI Equality Officer Ryan Griffin said: "A separate institution is not a substitute for marriage. The Government is engaged in an attempt to barter with the public over the human right to marry."

Tomorrow’s protests are also supported by MarriagEquality and other organisations.