Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

As Deputy Clare Daly stated, this is a happy occasion because we are further expanding the boundaries of freedom, equality and self-determination and placing another example of bigotry in the dustbin of history where it belongs. I very much welcome the Bill and look forward to the referendum campaign we will conduct in the weeks ahead. I hope and confidently believe we will achieve a resounding "Yes" vote on 22 May. While same-sex marriage has been a long time coming, it is nevertheless very welcome that we have finally reached this point.

As someone who has fought for choice on many issues and in many areas in the 25 years that I have been a political activist, one of favourite pro-choice slogans is "Not the church, not the State, women must decide their fate". It applies every bit as much to this issue as to pro-choice issues because it relates to people's private lives. Human beings should decide their fate without interference from religious or State institutions that believe they can dictate to people how they live their personal lives. People's lives are their own and they should have the right to live them as they wish, provided they do not hurt anybody else. In that regard, it is very welcome that we have reached this point. I hope we will achieve a resounding victory on 22 May.

The hypocrisy of the "No" side is stunning. They are dinosaurs who should fold up their tent and get off the stage. The main plank of their argument against the basic idea of equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, LGBT, people is that they do not mind equality for LGBT people but they want to protect children. There is an irony in this. How exactly did the institutions in question protect children when, for 70 or 80 years, they forcibly separated children from their mothers simply because their parents were not married, incarcerated children in mother and baby homes and orphanages and incarcerated mothers in Magdalen laundries where many of them were enslaved and treated appallingly? Where was the care then? The very same institutions which claim to be championing the rights of children treated women and children abominably.

I am not targeting all religious or Christian organisations, many of which continue to fight for justice and equality.

Indeed, there are some brave voices within the Catholic Church who have come out in recent days to say that they will be fighting for a "Yes" vote, opposing the diktat of the Catholic hierarchy.

Let us consider the way other people have been prevented from getting married historically, in this country and elsewhere, and who the forces were. It was not simply about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Let us consider some examples of people who have been prevented from getting married. Catholics were prevented from marrying Protestants for a long time. Was that a prohibition? Was it because of the interests of the children or the protection of the heterosexual relationship? No, it was not. It was simply pure religious bigotry, nothing more. The Queen of England is precluded from marrying a Catholic. What is that about? It is simply sectarian bigotry. Black people were prevented from marrying white people before black civil rights were established in the United States. Was that about protection of the family or children? No, it was simply racism and bigotry. Often, it was the Christian right in the United States who headed up the charge, frequently making the claim that somehow black people were lesser and that this was why white people should not marry them.

There is a nasty subtext to the arguments being made by the opponents of marriage equality. They do not have the honesty to set out fully their prejudices and bigotry. There is a nasty subtext when they suggest that somehow marriage equality for LGBT people is going to damage children. I will not even suggest what the subtext is, but it is obvious: there is an implication that somehow LGBT people are dangerous for children. It is absolutely nasty. It represents a veiling, under an apparently progressive argument about protecting children, of a nasty prejudice.

Let us consider the abuse of children. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to suggest that there is any greater likelihood or propensity for children to be abused by gay and lesbian people than by heterosexual people or in heterosexual family circumstances. In fact, if anything it is probably the latter more than the former in terms of the history of abuse, sexual abuse and child abuse in this country. It represents a stunning hypocrisy and dishonesty by these organisations.

The other thing we need to put to bed is the notion that somehow these people, in defending the heterosexual notion or norm of marriage, are actually protecting a historical norm. It is absolutely not true. Let us consider the historical and archaeological evidence of human civilisation. We have discovered that gay, lesbian and trans people have been a part of human civilisation and culture since the beginning, since the mesolithic and neolithic societies and other ancient civilisations. Indeed, in ancient Ireland there is a plethora of or overwhelming evidence that same-sex relations and trans identity and so on have been part and parcel of human civilisation and culture since the beginning. It is the norm in terms of human history and culture. It was only in the latter half of the 19th century, as Deputy Daly has indicated, that a particular notion of marriage, connected to property rights, social control and passing on wealth, which actually degraded human and sexual relations by connecting them with money and passing on property, emerged. Human relations and marriage should be about love and human interaction, not passing on property and wealth.

In the previous debate I referred to people like Oscar Wilde and some of the other early victims of this, as the most reactionary elements in British society, joined, sadly, by the Catholic Church, set up certain family norms. Anyone who was outside those so-called norms was persecuted in the most despicable way. I watched a fantastic film last night, "The Imitation Game", about Alan Turing, the man who developed the machine or the early computers to break the Enigma code that the Nazis used. Having saved if not the world then millions of lives through developing this machine, he committed suicide because he happened to be gay. He was jailed and persecuted despite the major contribution he had made to human civilisation. He committed suicide because of his persecution.

In line with all of this, I appeal to the Government to boycott the New York St. Patrick's Day parade this weekend, organised by the ancient order of homophobes, sometimes known as the Ancient Order of Hibernians. It is absolutely despicable that the organisers of the St. Patrick's Day parade in New York refuse to allow the Irish LGBT community onto that parade. I note that Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York city, has quite rightly made the decision to boycott that parade for the second year in a row. In solidarity with the LGBT people of this country, the United States and the world, I believe we should make a political point in favour of equality and against bigotry by refusing to join that parade this year.

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