Éire, welcome to the club.
It is of course fantastic that legislation will now be passed to give gay and lesbian couples equal rights when it comes to legal joining, but what is probably touted as the bigger story in this is the fact that they are giving the public a chance to vote on the issue. Many are claiming it is only democratic to do so, whilst others are saying that the rights of a minority should not be contingent on the support of the majority.
I tend to agree with the latter, but there's more to it than that. In order to explain, let us go on a little tour of history.
September 17, 1787. Whilst the constitution of the newly-formed United States of America would still take time to be ratified by the individual states, the constitution itself is still considered today to be one of the finest legal documents ever produced. It lay down the basic rights of individuals - and despite the rocky years that would lie ahead for this newborn nation - that one piece of paper gave precedence and founding for millions of people to claim that their subservience or degradation was unconstitutional.
On the 26 July 1833, the Parliament of Great Britain concluded its debate on the issue of slavery at a time when the empire itself was a vast beneficiary of the trade. The slave trade itself had been abolished many years beforehand, but this was more than that - it wasn't just cutting off an economic limb, it was delivering to a vast number of unrepresented people the right that every other white worker had, which was to be paid for their services rather than pressed into doing it. The law passed just ten years (it sounds long, but a relatively short period of time for the age) after William Wilberforce and others established the Anti-Slavery Society. Within a month it had been granted Royal Assent, and passed into law.
The Representation of the People Act 1928 was passed on the 2 July, and although it had had predecessors, this was the first law to grant universal voting rights to women in the United Kingdom over the age of 21. This was significant, not just because of the change it made to women's lives, but also because it was passed by a chamber full of men.
In December 1948, the organisation established at the end of World War II, the United Nations, declared the introduction and adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Today containing 30 articles, it is considered a bastion of equality and freedom of conscience.
Exactly 36 years after the UK gave women the right to vote, the United States of America passed the Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination based on religion, sex, national origin, or - most notably - skin colour. It was the result of years of campaigning by various organisations, epitomised today by the speeches and - well, just general life - of Dr Martin Luther King.
These are just a handful of the most well-known examples of significant step changes in human rights - there are many, many more examples that I could give. The common theme of all these documents and statutes is that they were all written or passed by lawmakers. Lawyers, more than the people, had a much greater part to play in determining these tenets of equal liberty, and as strange as this might sound, that's exactly how it should be.
Humans did not arrive at the conclusion that all people are equal by asking each and every person if they considered themselves no more or less worthy of an opinion than their neighbour. When the human species initiated the notion of law, they set into motion a series of events that simply the application of logic told them should be implemented. Legal professionals understand this better than the population, and again, that might sound anti-democratic, but rights are not things that can be determined by popular vote as they are meant to apply universally anyway.
Of course, Ireland's referendum is required for any change to the constitution to be made. This perhaps underlines the reason why I like the "organic" nature of the constitution of the United Kingdom, whereby any change to our fundamental political structure can be implemented by new acts of Parliament. It's a fragile balance, certainly, which is why - if we were to create a constitution one day - I would advocate for a very basic one, which outlined only the fundamental rights of citizens, and ensuring law could never be created that stepped on those rights.
The referendum only deals with the implementation of law relating to same sex couples, but this is disingenuous as it implies inequality even after the fact. The section of the constitution that deals with the family, Article 41, is horribly written and appears marginally offensive - it needs to be scrapped entirely and rewritten. You can see clearly just in scanning it that it is basically derived from concepts promoted when the Catholic Church still had an underlining influence in Irish politics. Considering the outcome of this referendum, it will hopefully lead to some very searching questions in the Oireachtas (the legislature) about the continuing sectarian nature of not just Irish society but its political structure too.
Come on Ireland, don't just implement legislation specifically for same-sex couples. Change the wording of Article 41 - hell, do away with the entire constitution and start over again, because if you're going to start joining the secular world then you cannot have this following sentence to introduce readers to Article 44:
"The State acknowledges that the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God. It shall hold His Name in reverence, and shall respect and honour religion."
Ireland votes Yes:
The Irish Constitution:
On-topic, but slightly different take. Interesting read that ultimately starts from the position that marriage is a religious institution:
