Madam, – The various church leaders whose letter (May 5th) highlights the absence of a conscience clause in the civil partnership legislation currently going through the Dáil are to be commended. Section 101 of the legislation will amend the Equal Status Act 2000 criminalising those unwilling to provide goods or services in respect of civil partnerships.
Similar legislation in other jurisdictions has led to prosecutions. For example Elaine Huguenin, a photographer in the US has faced prosecution as a result of her unwillingness to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony. The Equal Status Act 2000 provides for a fine of up to €25,000 and/or a two-year prison sentence.
The Christian conviction that alternative relationships do not have an equal status to marriage is borne out by reality. The relationships of co-habiting couples are not as stable as marriage. That some co-habiting couples graduate to marriage also indicates that they themselves regard marriage as preferable. The absence of any procreative potential in homosexual relationships is the elephant in the room that the strident egalitarian ideologues refuse to acknowledge. We need debate, and legislation that recognises these realities and the fact that people approach these matters from widely differing perspectives.
The law currently being enacted panders to an ugly breed of secular fundamentalism which would restrict moral or religious conviction to the strictly private domain, and criminalise people who take their faith seriously.
Churches rightly enjoy some derogations in relation to aspects of equality legislation and are not for example compelled to employ those who do not hold to their faith. A conscience clause in relation to this matter would give people choice, something which I thought was valued in pluralistic, tolerant societies. – Yours, etc,