Irish Marriage ‘Equality’ Referendum – “Why I am voting ‘No’!”

By Brian Ó Caithnia

Let me explain why I am voting No to the legal redefinition of marriage on May 22nd.

The correct title of this referendum should be “The Abolition of Marriage Bill”. This INSANE legislation is easily the most destructive piece of legislation ever to be proposed in the history of the [Irish] State.

Marriage is a permanent commitment between a man and woman to enter into a comprehensive relationship whose end is the creation and proper raising of children. Marriage is THE fundamental, cross-cultural institution for bridging the male-female divide so that children have loving, committed mothers and fathers.
Same-sex marriage legally abolishes all of the primary characteristics of marriage as they have existed nearly everywhere for all of human history. Marriage will no longer be the institution that regulates the expected norms of mothers and fathers towards their children. As the “Yes” side keep screaming in this debate, marriage for them has “Nothing to do with mothers, fathers and children”, it only has to do with “adult relationships” and their “emotional fulfilment.”

This referendum does not simply “let more people access the marriage contract,” it abolishes the marriage contract, and creates a void where the allocated responsibilities for the raising of children shall become unclear. By advocating a version of marriage that has been stripped bare of its richest and most important characteristics, same-sex marriage advocates are now incapable of explaining why marriage even exists, or why it should continue to exist, as a distinct legal status.

Below I list a number of sample reasons why this INSANE referendum must be rejected. Subsequently, I elaborate upon each point in greater depth:

Part I: The primary end of marriage is not the emotions of adults, but the best interests for children. This referendum abolishes this essential, universal characteristic of marriage.
Part II: A child benefits most from a marriage between their biological mother and father. This fact and ideal will be undermined in the law as children are removed from considerations in marriage contracts.
Part III: This referendum does violence to the rights of children by enabling the artificial creation of children without their biological mother and father.
Part IV: Marriage does not suit relationships between ‘two men’ and ‘two women’.
Part V: Marriage is not a “benefits package”.
Part VI: If marriages between “two men” and “two women” are permitted, there is no logical reason why this cannot be extended to “three men” or more, as has already occurred in Thailand.
Part VII: Changing the legal meaning of marriage shall distort the public understanding of marriage.

Now I elaborate on each of the above points:

Part I: The primary end of marriage is not the emotions of adults, but the best interests for children. This referendum abolishes this essential, universal characteristic of marriage.
Why does marriage even exist? The State generally does not regulate intimate relationships between people, and the more intimate they become the less the government regulates them. Why and how has the State come to regulate marriage? It is because all human beings enter the world through the sexual relationships between men and women and the fruit of these relationships, the babies that are created, are totally dependent on others to survive. Sexual relationships inevitably result in babies which are necessary for the continuation and future functioning of a society. The public institution of marriage was created to manage and order the babies that men and women create, and to ensure that these babies will be looked after and will become functioning and stable adults beneficial to society.
There is no contract to govern close friendships, neither is there one between brothers and sisters. Why has the marriage contract emerged between a man and a woman? It is clear that the relationships between men and women are special and distinct because they alone can create children. Marriage clearly came into existence not for the emotions of adults, but because of the evident needs of children. If there were no children, there would have been no need for the public institution of marriage.
To the libertarians reading this, even Justin Raimondo recently wrote that “Marriage evolved because of the existence of children: without them, the institution loses its biological, economic, and historical basis, its very reason for being.”
One objection that is often raised against marriage being an institution designed from its inception for children is, what about couples that cannot have children? Well, ask yourself, if a football team loses a match, is it still a football team? The end goal of forming a team is to win a game, but if you lose, does that mean that you are not a team? Of course not! It just means that you were a team that did not achieve the end goal for which you were designed, but you are still a team! Similarly, as the end of marriage is children, even if for whatever reason you cannot have children, it does not mean you are not married.

Part II: A child benefits most from a marriage between their biological mother and father. This fact and ideal will be undermined in the law as adult emotions become the over-riding factor in marriage.
This Referendum is altering Article 41 that is entitled “The Family.” The whole point of family law is to protect the best interests of the child. There are literally tens of thousands of social science studies that demonstrate that the single best family environment for a child is to be raised by BOTH their BIOLOGICAL parents in a permanent low-conflict relationship. Children benefit best from the self-evident biological, physiological, and psychological differences between men and women which find their complementarity in marriage. Furthermore, neither adopted parents, nor foster parents, nor single parents, nor orphanages, nor step-parents (which includes two-men or two-women unions where the child retains one natural parent) come close in their ability to replace the natural biological family.
Marriage law is built on the “end of marriage” being children. Since neither “two men” nor “two women” are biologically capable of having children, how can marriage any longer be about providing the best environment for the procreation and proper raising of children? Logically, the secondary goal of marriage, being the “unity and well-being of the spouses” shall henceforth be the primary goal of marriage.
The “emotional fulfilment of the adults” shall thus inexorably over-ride the “interests of children.” When marriage is only about emotional fulfilment, once the fleeting “warm fuzzy feeling” wears off, on what grounds can one enforce a marriage contract? This is exactly what has happened in countries like the United States, where marriage is now the only legal contract that society does not enforce; either partner can break the bond with impunity. Marriage cannot be built only upon emotions because then it cannot be accepted that there is any real permanency in marriage and no-fault divorce would inexorably follow.

Part III: This referendum does violence to the rights of children by enabling the artificial creation of children without their biological mother and father.
This referendum shall create a demand for artificial surrogacy to be provided by the State. This shall create a dystopian nightmare suitable for an Aldous Huxley novel. Children shall be bought and sold like cattle, ordered from catalogues to be without a father or a mother.
Ironically, although the end of marriage shall no longer be children, as is so often screamed by the “Yes” campaigners when they attack the “Mothers and Fathers Matter” posters, these “two men” or “two women” unions shall now have a right to found a family.
Article 41 that is being altered in this referendum is uniquely entitled “The Family” and declares “The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.” Since marriage, properly understood, is the foundation of the family, and since the state shall soon be subsidising and promoting the artificial creation of children through surrogacy and IVF, the logical consequence is that “two men” or “two women” will be capable of demanding that the State provide and enable for the artificial creation and surrogacy of children.
This is a already something that should be outlawed for heterosexual couples, because it involves the commodification of children, creating a whole industry of “made to order” designer babies, where babies are purchased in catalogues. Like from a dystopian book by Aldous Huxley, we already see a “market for sperm” and the “renting of wombs” that is repulsive to human dignity.
As it stands in Ireland as a result of the Children’s Rights Referendum, such IVF children shall not be legally allowed find who their real parents are until the age of eighteen. Dr. Joanna Rose was conceived by anonymous sperm donation in the UK in the 1970s and has stated that this new industry “violates international human rights” of children.
The law creates social norms and moulds public opinion. By legalising “two men” and “two women” marriages, this absurd and abhorrent practice of surrogacy shall gain in momentum as Dr. Joanna Rose stated, “The focus on adults’ “right” to a child, end up trampling the rights of children.”
Furthermore, an immediate consequence of redefining marriage to include “two men” and “two women” unions is that a “right” to children from adoption agencies shall be created. Adoption agencies are already inundated with demands by traditional mother and father marriages who for whatever reason cannot procreate. Oftentimes, Irish people have to go to East Asia to adopt because there is little likelihood of them being able to adopt in Ireland.
What this law shall do is it shall create a “right” for these “two men” and “two women” unions to be allocated children. When the ideal family of a married man and woman are already available, adoption agencies will be forced to allocate children to these “two men” and “two women” unions. This is what has already happened in the United Kingdom and North America.

Part IV: Marriage does not suit relationships between ‘two men’ and ‘two women’.
Relationships between “two men” and “two women” are vastly different to marital relationships between a man and a woman anyway. As one author wrote:
“Gay and lesbian relationships have not been as financially intertwined as marriage historically, which was traditionally structured on the basis that women were the property of men. For a lot of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) people, being independent financially is an important part of who they are. To be told by the law that their financial relationship is now expected to mimic that of a married couple is unknown territory.”
In fact, there are some ironic cases of same-sex marriage campaigners in the United States. Having acquired the right to marry another man, they were shocked to discover the burdensome and potentially very expensive regulations that have developed in the contract called marriage, which brings me to my next point-

Part V: Marriage is not a “benefits package”.
There are few financial rewards that pertain to marriage. The main “privileges” arise simply because the law recognises your spouse as your closest next of kin, arising from the western religious legal tradition that a husband and wife become “one-flesh”. These privileges of kin can be acquired already without redefining marriage.
In fact, for many people, financially speaking, they are much better off if they do not get married, especially in the United States and now in Ireland with tax individualisation.
The main “privileges” acquires in marriage are really just those that marriage actually does by its essence, being that your spouse becomes your closest next of kin. Thus, you gain visiting rights when your spouse is in hospital, as would any kin.
Same-sex marriage campaigners who want to attain these few benefits of marriage can use alternative ways to acquire next of kin privileges without have to redefine society’s most fundamental institution.

Part VI: If marriages between “two men” and “two women” are permitted, there is no logical reason why this cannot be extended to “three men” or more, as has already occurred in Thailand.
Furthermore, if marriage is merely an emotional commitment to someone, how can you deny marriage to “parent-child” couples? Why do couples caring for each other have to be in a sexual relationship? What about single Moms with their adult sons, who arguably engage in more caretaking than some married folk? Why are best friends who are not sexually intimate excluded from marriage benefits?
There is no logical ground to reject any of the above once traditional marriage between a man and a woman whose end is the procreation and proper raising of children is rejected. Same-sex marriage will lead inevitably to expanding the definition of marriage to include these relationships.
In reality, the end result of this will be that marriage shall lose all its legal standing entirely, and instead of traditional marriages getting some benefits, nobody shall acquire any benefits because to do so shall invoke discrimination. Same-sex marriage shall bring about the abolition of marriage, as numerous leading same-sex marriage campaigners have openly proclaimed.

Part VII: Changing the legal meaning of marriage shall distort the public understanding of marriage
Marriage is not a factory for childbearing. Marriage existed to encourage men and women to create the next generation in the right context and simultaneously to discourage the creation of children in other contexts-out of wedlock in fatherless homes.
Laws do more than incentivize or punish. They educate directly and indirectly. They define the boundaries of organizations, institutions, and relationships in the public square. One of the most basic ways that the law of marriage helps regulate out-of-wedlock births, for example, is by defining a socially shared category of married births, without which the very idea of unmarried childbearing disappears.
The same-sex marriage advocates are shrewdly aware of the importance of the law is in forming the behaviour and opinions of the people. We often hear how these unions of “two men” or “two women” will never be fully accepted as being equal to marriage until the constitution recognises them as such, despite the fact that civil unions have already given them everything but the name “marriage”.
Same-sex marriage changes the public meaning of marriage. The idea that a mother and father is the norm for children must be made anathema to appease the new “two men” and “two women” unions. The leading same-sex advocates themselves and even some US courts have begun ruling in this manner. In order to make gay relationships fully equal, the state-through the courts-must repress from its own consciousness (and hopefully from their point of view eventually from the people of the state) the idea that the procreative potential of opposite-sex couples is worthy of special attention. To this end, fines and punishments shall be allotted upon dissenters as we have already seen in bakeries in Ireland and across the world.

In conclusion, the legalisation of same-sex marriage is simply INSANE and must be voted down. The principles of marriage as it has naturally existed for thousands of years are being undone in an unhinged and ignorant social experiment that does violence to the rights of children for whom marriage was created in the first place.
G.K. Chesterton once wrote “This triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilizations which disregard it.”

Vote No!