Championing Equality: Zappone & Gilligan in UCD

On Thursday evening, I had the delightful pleasure of helping to organise the Equality Society's Inaugural annual lecture with guest speakers, Katherine Zappone & Ann Louise Gilligan. I was going to be lazy and not post about this, but the beauty and love that I felt personally at this event was too much to ignore. I have been following the KALcase since it started in 2004, I even have the breakingnews.ie article on pdf from when it was first announced they would be seeking judicial review against the Revenue Commissioners. I was in the States at the time and remember feeling a sense of immense pride that something, anything was happening finally with my rights. I was only on the process of coming out, and having all those mid-phase hangups, but this happened around the October/November of 2004, and coupled with a number of other factors, I came out to the last of my mates in the Carolina Global Community in USC. I remember commenting at the time to a mate, that I didnt hold any faith in the Irish Judiciary in making a decision of this magnitude, thus far this has proven to be the case. We shall see how the Irish Supreme Court reacts when the case goes before it sometime this year or early next year.

However back to the event, Judy Walsh, chair, opened the talk by discussing the need for further societal acceptance for affective equality which set the tone nicely for the rest of the talk. Ann Lousie spoke first, describing Rawls second principle of Sameness to the gasps of some of us who are not necessarily in favour of Rawls Theories of Justice and his belief in the inherent selfishness of man. She then contrasted this with Iris Young's theory of Difference with this and used these two theories to describe the current debate about Gay Civil Marriage and whether it was assimilationist or not. Speaking about how Katherine and her met, she advised that in 1981 Boston College only had 2 PhD studentships available. Ann Louise got one. Katherine got the other. A Match that has lasted up to this day.

Katherine began to speak then, whilst Ann-Louise looked on, about the beginning of their work in Brittas, West Tallaght and the beginning of their community centre which operated out of their backyard from 1983 up until the late 1990s, when it moved to a purpose built building and was renamed 'An Cósan' and is still in operation providing second chance education in West Tallaght.

Then Ann Louise talked about their relationship and their decision to marry in 2003 in Canada. She described how it was a complete family occasion. To have their commitment to each other recognized civilly through the state, she acknowledged was a beautiful experience. She said that "Some people ask us, if it made a difference to our lives. I can honestly say that it has". Coming home from Canada, they did as all returning newly-weds did and registered their marriage with the state's institutions. And Revenue declined to accept their marriage due to the Oxford dictionary's definition of marriage being a heterosexual institution of "one man and one woman". Rightly they proceeded with a judicial review of their case, and as already outlined it is currently set to be heard sometime by the end of this year or early 2009.

The talk ended shortly after that, but not after they both instilled a sense of the love and Commitment which they feel for each other. Anybody who up to this point had doubted the motives of these two women, as just two lesbians looking for tax breaks, would be severly pushed to hold onto that stance by the end of this talk.

To say that this event has change my life, would be a lie. It has not. However It certainly is one of those events which shall be marked as an important facet of my life (take note you future biographers). I only hope that some day I will be able to enjoy a relationship of such commitment and love for even a brief amount of time.

Thank you.

MarriagEquality Fundraiser

Just got this in this morning's email from Moinne. MarriagEquality has replaced the KAL initiative from February of this year by the looks of it and they are going to be fundraising. For those of you who do not know what the KAL initiative is or what the case is about, it concerns two women-Katherine Zappone & Anne-Louise Gilligan-who were married in Canada and have taken a challenge against the Revenue Commissioners to the High Court, which they lost and is now appealed to the Supreme Court, with a date for sometime in the Fall of 2008. For those of you who have the time and can contribute to this event or to the Campaign in General, I'm sure all donations great and small would be appreciated.

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Dear Friends

MarriagEquality is having a fundraising lunch on the 6 th of March 2008, at FIRE Restaurant in the Mansion House, Dublin and we need everyone to sell as many tickets as they can so that this year is as big a success as the last two lunches.

MarriagEquality will be launched formally on the 18 th of February 2008 in the Mansion House. As you know, we are aiming to build an active coalition seeking equality for gay and lesbian people and their families. We will organise our own informative and awareness raising events, support other LGBT and Human Rights organisations, work to influence politicians, support couples, families and friends to meet and influence their public representatives and publicise widely the discrimination suffered by gay and lesbian people and their families in Ireland because they are denied access to civil marriage. To do all this however, we need to raise funds.

Please pass this on to everyone you know and please revert and let me know how many tickets you are willing to take on to sell and if you or your organisation can buy a table. Tickets are €150 each, so a table of ten is €1,500.

We also need items for our auction and prize draw so please revert if you or someone you know can donate something.

If you require any further details please feel free to contact me at the below number. I look forward to hearing from you as early as possible in response to this advance notice.


Best Wishes
--
Moninne Griffith
MarriagEquality
087-9321329

LGBT Noise & Gay Civil Marriage

So today I took part in a protest with the new group 'LGBT Noise' on Sth King st. (I think, yas should know how shocking my geography is.lol). Anyways I arrived at 12ish, and firstly because it was bleeding freezing out, despite my heavy jacket & scarf, I needed a fantastic White hot chocolate from Butlers on Grafton st.(Stephen's Green end). I did eventually warm up and was beginning to feel my feet again but not until after the Carols had begun. Anyway I was amazed at the range of people who showed up today; maybe it is because I have always been involved in events in Limerick so I knew who everybody was or half-knew who everybody was. However I was genuinely amazed at firstly seeing Sen. David Norris, a man whom I have the greatest of admiration and respect for but then to see Katherine Zappone and Anne-Louise Gilligan as well, well needless to say I was very impressed. I do sometimes find it quiet hard to speak with people I don't know. Mainly because I don't know what to say, but when it is people whom you admire, for a whole host of reasons, then the walls just build and build.

The reasoning behind this protest/Carol Service was to give some momentum behind a push for civil marriage in Ireland. As the website states:

"The purpose of this event is to create an awareness of the need for FULL equality for gay people and to let the public know that Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Transgendered (LGBT) people no longer wish to remain second-class citizens under Irish law. The current government is promising to publish the heads of a bill for same-sex civil partnership in Spring 2008: Bullet points for discussion, not commitments to equal rights. This bill promises to demote rather than promote equality and is an insult to all who believe in human, civil and equal rights"

Doing the Masters that I am doing, has this year given me a whole new lease of life. I have begun to see things in a completely different light and also a recognition that while change is hard as hell, change is always necessary when inherent inequalities persist. While this was a view I had in the past, I think i have finally realized how hard it is to fight for something continuously when you know you should have it from the beginning.

I am Irish. I am a Constitutional Republican. I am a citizen of my wonderful Ireland. Yet my wonderful Ireland, in all her Constitutional Republican virtues, refuses to bestow all the rights and privileges which she gives to those who are married to me or any of us who identify as Lesbian or Gay. Instead, my wonderful Ireland will next year bring forward a piece of legislation which will apparently bring "equality" within my community. Well I say that this Civil Partnership/Civil Union is not equality. Equality which has restrictions is not equality. It is another institutional bloc which exists to prevent people from participating fully and openly in Irish society.

There is only one way to have equality between those who are gay and lesbian and those who are straight and that is the complete equalization of relationships in the State institution of Civil marriage. Those who argue that Gay marriage is not constitutional should examine their Government's own report on this, which says that the only way for full equality is for Gay Civil Marriage. It is also of note to point out that marriage has never been defined as one man and one women in the Irish constitution. The only piece of legislation which was brought in on this was the Social Welfare Miscellaneous Act in 2003, which specifically defined marriage as one man and one women, in order to further stigmatize and institutionalize homophobia within the Irish state.

I yet again call on those who read this blog to voice their opinions to all in their power. Make representations to your local T.D.s, get involved in a campaign, Support a Campaign, but ultimately get out and make some noise because be dammed sure that nobody else is going to do it for you. You are the only person who knows your story well enough that you can recount it. As the cliché goes "Be the change you want to be yourself". However as much as a cliché as that is, it was Mahatma Ghandi who said it.