Madam, - Declan Kiberd's column on homosexual marriage (Opinion, October 3rd) never puts forward a cogent argument why we should believe that "homosexual relationships are on the same level as heterosexual ones".
Prof Kiberd's assumption avoids dealing with the thorny question of defining marriage. Undeniably, marriage is a public declaration of two people's commitment to love each other but this love is by its nature a life-giving love. The State has an obligation towards traditional (heterosexual) married love because this is its own cradle. The State has no obligations towards the myriad of other possible kinds of sexual unions, genuine, loving, and fulfilling though they may be.
Why should the State be concerned about heterosexual love, if it were not for the fact that in its natural context, it is a life-bearing love?
The present High Court case seeks to redefine marriage to such an extent as to lose its very nature and purpose. I have always felt that if one wants to create a new reality, it is necessary to create a new word to fit that which one wishes to describe; but to twist an existing word is the very essence of social manipulation and an attempt to erase distinctions in a most unhelpful way. Definitions are not straitjackets, but they are frameworks of meaning.
Finally, I contend that sexual nature is not just a social construct. From our common experience, we can deduce that this sexual nature is above all ordered to complementarity and fruitfulness: the first, because we live as interpersonal beings in webs of relationships, the second, because we are life-giving creatures with capacities which extend beyond ourselves.
For these reasons, I believe that the choice which best expresses this complementarity through difference, and this potential fruitfulness through physical and spiritual union, is marriage between a man and a woman.
Nature, not man, has decreed that a child should have both a mother and father. Is it fair to make children the object of such a "brave new world" social experiment? - Yours, etc,
ANDREW LARKIN, Knocklyon Park, Templeogue, Dublin 16.
A chara, - I noted with interest the letter from Kirsi Hanifin, women and equality officer of the Labour Party, arguing that gay couples should have the same right as heterosexual couples to marry (October 17th).
Is Ms Hanifin speaking in an official capacity? And if she is, does this represent a change of party policy since February 2004, when Labour TDs abstained from a vote on a Sinn Féin amendment (to the Civil Registration Bill) which would have allowed for same-sex marriage?
If so, Labour is to be congratulated for catching up. - Is mise,
WENDY LYON, Cabra Road, Dublin 7.
Madam, - The letters by Cillian McBride and Kirsi Hanafin (October 17th) in response to Breda O'Brien's article on marriage (Opinion, October 14th) were packed full of the usual woolly rubbish on equality that we hear so often these days.
While an individual's sexuality is their own business, the idea that heterosexual couples and homosexual couples should be treated as equals is plain ridiculous. Heterosexual couples are more beneficial to society than homosexual couples for the very simple reason that they, and only they, can create the next generation.
Therefore society and its laws should recognise this fact and we shouldn't be wasting public time and money on pretending otherwise. - Yours, etc,
KEVIN WINDLE, Glencairn View, Leopardstown, Dublin 18.