Referendum on Gender Equality (THREADBANS IN OP)

You keep accusing others of having a 'romanticised patriarchal view of marriage' and raising all manner of ills that were supposedly caused by marriage.

Maybe you need to examine your own baggage and hobby horses. There are a great many ordinary decent Irish families and indeed families worldwide that function very well within marriages. Marriage is not divisive, on the contrary it revolves around union of two people in both their best interests. I resist you twisting that basic idea. Hard cases make bad law.

Putting other 'durable relationships' on the same par as marriage is bad I would consider for couples, mothers, fathers and children.

Because there are people in this thread who are putting forward a mythical idea that all marriages are loving, romantic, safe, caring and equal when this isn't always reality. I am merely challenging the mythical rose tinted view of marriage put forward by some here. Its not a perfect institution. It never has been. Resist away. Its a discussion forum and I am putting forward an alternative viewpoint as is my right. That does not mean that I in anyway reject all the good that marriage brings its more about balancing the discussion and acknowledging bad too.

How would putting other families on the same par as married families be bad for them?

I haven't been following this thread too closely, but I heard an ad on the radio today for a new carer's pension to be paid by the state. So, they are able to bring this in, whether or not the carer amendment gets passed or not. I thought it was an interesting example that shows something doesn't (always) really have to be explicitly mentioned in the constitution in order for the government to legislate for it. And if that's the case for carers, why isn't it also true for non-marital familes?

So, I'm wondering can someone give me an example of a right that marital families have, and non-marital families don't have, and which couldn't be given to non-marital families because of the family's protection in the constitution?

There's an example in thread. A man who co habited with his partner for 20 years and had children together, was not entitled to a widowers pension when his partner died, but if they were married he would have been.

He took a case to the courts, who said he wasn't entitled to it because the constitution define family as married family only.

also, there have been cases of unmarried fathers taking cases to stop the mother of their child giving the child up for adoption, the courts found against unmarried fathers as they don't have automatic rights, as they were not in a family, as defined.

Right, but what I am wondering is, why doesn't the government just change the law to also provide it to long term co-habitees?

That case is about the interpretation of the relevant law, not whether the government has the right to pass a law to provide the same benefit to co-habitees.

I realise people are going to answer "because of the constitutional protection of the family" but unless there is an actual case to quote where they tried to do it, and were shot down by the Supreme Court, then I'd say there are good arguments why such a law wouldn't be thrown out by the courts.

Because they were not a married couple

I was always against marriage, until I had a child and then I realised in this country you have no choice if you want to have any rights for your children. Mad stuff.

Is the implication that modern marriage is patriarchal because women spend more time on caring and housework than men.

Is there any other aspect of marriage that is patriarchal?

Men do less care work and house work for many reasons - 1. Men work longer hours 2. Men do not have as long paid paternity leave or parental leave. 3. Men do not live as long as women and presumably the majority of over 75s carers are women looking after their partners. 4. Men are lazy and have done little housework in their early lives so fob it off on their partners - ie patriarchy.

all of these reasons combined give you an imbalance -however this referendum will not do a thing to address this other than offer the government some "tackling inequality" brownie points. As Roderic said "a womens place is wherever she wants it to be".

The assumption being that cohabitation has the same positive outcomes for society (men women and children) as marriage has.

Will cohabiting couples get the same tax breaks that married couples receive?

That would be true equality and a move away from our outdated religious bias.

The constitution promoted marriage as the institution on which the family has been founded, the family being "the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, and as a moral institution possessing inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law".

There are 2 ways of looking at the referendum.

1. It no longer promotes marriage above cohabitation as the fundamental unit group of society -
2. It gives cohabiting parents the same rights as married parents

Its possible that both statements are true.

Well then, let the parents get married and use the well developed system of marriage..

As an example, we lived together as a couple for maybe 6 years - all fine & dandy. But once we started to discuss starting a family, we quickly agreed that the best thing for all of us, was to be married - a civil ceremony did the job.

What's the rationale behind putting other 'durable relationships' on a par with marriage in the constitution?? Maybe it's to lessen the rights of people?

Marriage as outlined and understood in the constitution is nothing to do with religion!!

Marriage is a civil matter, a legal framework. It's the civil part of marriage that is important - the religious stuff that some/ many couples want is just fluff.