Madam, - Your Editorial of July 4th, "Advancing Gay Rights", suggests that the legalisation of gay marriage would be "hugely controversial" in Ireland but that giving a measure of recognition to same-sex partnerships might be "less controversial" if done in the context of assisting unmarried heterosexual couples.
This may be true but it is rather illogical because it seems to me that gay and lesbian couples have a stronger case than unmarried heterosexual couples. The crucial point here is that such heterosexual couples already have the option of marrying; same-sex couples don't!
Action is needed now to accord full equality with married heterosexual couples to the many gay and lesbian couples who already have marriage-type relationships but who nonetheless lack marriage-type rights. Yours, etc.,
PETER O' KEEFE, Kimmage, Dublin 12.
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Madam, - I recently encountered a bizarre argument for opposing gay marriage. Apparently it will "weaken" heterosexual marriage.
This is a fascinating argument. A man and wife, at home in their bed, will suddenly find their marital bliss disrupted by the change in status of two men or women living together in the house next door.
How? Telepathy? Voodoo? Are we really being told that the only thing preventing married couples from running off with people of the same sex is the law? If anything, perhaps it illuminates the apparently surreal marriages that some of the more extreme anti-gay marriage people seem to be living in.
The issue of same-sex marriage is far more simple than is being portrayed by its opponents. It is about simple happiness, about two adults loving each other.
Surely accommodating that pursuit of happiness must be the prerequisite of any democratic government of the people? - Yours, etc.,
JASON O'MAHONY, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.