Madam, — My thanks to Declan Kelly and Sophia Purcell (July 3rd) for revealing the true and radical nature of family diversity ideology.
Mr Kelly simply denies a child’s right to a mother and father, even as a first principle.
Seemingly the fact that every child has a mother and father, and would not exist without a mother and father is entirely irrelevant. No society in all human history has ever believed such an absurd thing.
Ms Purcell for her part redefines marriage so as to make children an optional add-on.
What she doesn’t explain is why society and the State should have the least interest in subsidising sexual relationships per se if marriage is simply the sexual “union of people in a stable committed relationship who love each other”.
Who cares what two people do in their bedroom? Nor does she explain why marriage must involve only two people.
So Mr Kelly denies a child’s right to a mother and father where possible, and Ms Purcell redefines marriage so that it’s really all about adults. In both cases children are the losers. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Why does the gay lobby always speak with such certainty? They assert that the homosexual and heterosexual states are exact equivalents, without giving reasons.
Shane Kelleher (July 1st) asserts that differences of sexual orientation are akin to references of race.
On the same page, Sinéad Slevin uses the words “archaic” and “narrow-minded” for those who disagree with her. On the previous day, Laura Harmon used “prejudiced” in the same way.
By contrast, Maghnus Monaghan (July 1st) refers to the results of research, which lead to very different conclusions. So who are the broad-minded ones, and who are the dogmatists who tolerate no dissent? - Yours, etc,
Madam, – I have been in a committed relationship for 17 years. Because the person I fell in love with and have chosen to share my life with is a woman, the civil right of marriage – open in principle to all heterosexual Irish people – has never been available to me as a citizen of this State.
A lot of our married friends have asked us when we’re going to get married too – as if maybe we’re just being a bit slow off the mark or need a bit of encouragement – and we have to remind them that we can’t. They simply assume the right on our behalf because it seems so natural to them and they forget that we don’t have it. But then they have known us for a very long time, and so they see two human beings who – like them – have been faithfully together through every experience that 17 years of life can bring to a couple.
To have the relationship of my life characterised as “a lifestyle arrangement” by Tim Jackson (July 3rd) is deeply painful, but then mr jackson does not know me, so he is speaking not about me but about some abstract entity that he calls “the gay lobby”.
Well, the lobby is full of people like me, the lobby exists because of people like me, and amid the great joy of celebrating the marriages of our straight friends and our siblings there is always for those of us in the lobby the increasing heartbreak of knowing that because of our sexual orientation – and that alone – the State does not permit us equal recognition and status for our own relationships. – Yours, etc,