Rónán Mullen (Independent)

Before the break I made the point on these amendments that we should not look at people's views on this matter on the basis that they are likely to be sectarian or religious if they come from a traditionalist position. People of different religious views will be on both sides of this argument and there are people who would be concerned about allowing same-sex adoption for reasons that have nothing to do with religion. They might be of any religious faith or none. I said it is important to examine this issue on the basis of reasoned argument, taking as our starting principle that we seek the common good, to vindicate the dignity of the person in all situations and to address the needs of the child as a paramount consideration.

In considering whether it would be appropriate to allow for or to facilitate adoption by same-sex couples, I said it was appropriate we examine our Constitution, which is a natural law document. Saying the Constitution is a natural law document can be mistaken for meaning it is a Christian or Roman Catholic document. The concept of natural law has to do with the idea that each human being has certain inherent rights which cannot be given or taken away, even by a majority vote. I pointed out that there are thinkers, such as Professor John Finnis of Oxford, who are eminent in natural law but who do not come from a particular religious perspective as they reason their case.

I made the point that people of religious faith are entitled to speak from their lived experience as they assess issues and that people come from all sorts of perspectives. People base their political views on issues such as personal convenience, bias, personal upbringing and preferences. All sorts of reasons motivate people and in a sense it is wrong to look behind people's reasons for having particular views. Instead, we should test the quality of people's arguments using the reason we have all been given.

In approaching the question of same-sex adoption, I look at the Constitution's pledge to guard with special care the institution of marriage on which the family is founded. Contrary to what Senator Bacik appeared to indicate, that has always been understood to be the two-parent, man and woman, father and mother family. One of the questions we must address is whether we would like that to continue to be the case or to see the wording of that revisited in a dramatic and, perhaps, surprising way to include other family forms.

Nobody denies that children are brought up in diverse family situations and that there is nobility and heroism to be found in many situations where children are reared. However, that is not the question. The issue of interest to the State is how to promote the best interests of children by supporting the model which works best for most people most of the time. We all know there are dysfunctional traditional families and that terrible things happen within what has been called the traditional family. We know people will be brought up outside the traditional family, perhaps by same-sex or single parents, and that in many cases their upbringing will be heroic and will involve great love and huge self-sacrifice. Does that mean the State should be neutral on the question of family form? Far from it.

The State must vindicate the rights of the child in every situation while promoting the model it sees as being of timeless value in guaranteeing the best interests of children. This will always be imperfect because the law cannot bring about a perfect world; nothing can. However, the law can seek to promote and champion what works best, not to treat as equal value forms which do not work so well. It is meaningless to acknowledge on the one hand that the welfare of the child should be paramount while on the other hand rely on statistics which, on closer analysis, are not so reliable in seeking to claim that it does not matter whether a child has a father and mother as long as the quality of the relationship is good. Of course the quality of the parental relationship is the key issue but that ignores, rather than answers, the question, which is in what circumstances is the quality of the relationship most likely to be good.

The Constitution underpins my argument and it was drafted in this spirit. Common sense would acknowledge that allowing for same-sex adoption would deny children the acknowledgement of their right to a mother and a father, where possible. It clearly places the wish of adults above the rights of the child in a way that is not compatible with the stated aspiration that the welfare of the child is paramount. My distinguished colleagues quoted polls suggesting there is majority support for same-sex marriage. There may well be now without a thorough debate on it, but it is always dangerous to rely exclusively on statistics or surveys as we seek to determine what is proper and just. This is particularly true in a context where it is very difficult to have an honest, searching, meaningful debate on where the rights of same-sex couples end and how they might impact on the rights of children were we to support or sponsor same-sex adoption. It is very difficult to have that debate. People take it very personally, and I understand that, but we must have that debate and it must begin from first principles about what children need and what we owe children.

Allowing same-sex adoption would deny children acknowledgement of their right to a father and a mother where possible. The Iona Institute poll, which is not done by the Iona Institute but by a reputable polling firm, which would require that certain standards be met — that does not need to be said but it is no harm to add it — found that over 90% of the public support a child's right to a mother and a father where possible. The burden of proof in the child welfare debate clearly lies on those who argue that marriage between a man and a woman is not the optimum environment within which to raise children. Those who argue that it does not matter whether there is a male and a female parent really do have the burden of proof on them in this debate because they are the ones advocating radical social change.

It was my colleague, Senator Bacik, who suggested — I hope I do not misquote her — that all of the evidence pointed to the realisation that it does not really matter whether there is a father and a mother and what matters is quality of relationship. She cited, in particular, the research of Professor Susan Golombok. I quote, on Professor Golombok's study, what was stated in the High Court in the Gilligan and Zappone case where a couple are seeking to have their Canadian marriage recognised as a valid marriage in Ireland. It appears that in the Golombok studies only 38 children were used and this is a tiny sample. This is a problem with all studies on same sex parenting. There is little by way of reliable, longitudinal studies and people will differ as to what such studies mean. Often the studies are based on how people think they themselves are doing as distinct from being based on an objective analysis.

Miss Justice Dunne, the judge in the Gilligan and Zappone case, stated: "until such time as there are more longitudinal studies involving much larger samples that it will be difficult to reach firm conclusions on this topic". Today the studies are flawed in many ways and this was pointed out by Professor Linda Waite, not the academic to which my colleague Senator Norris referred who, I think, was an Irish academic, but Professor Linda Waite who is a sociologist in the University of Chicago and who describes herself as a neutral on gay marriage. She is a leading expert on the family, however, and she gave evidence in the Zappone-Gilligan case. She admitted that she had not read the Avon study but she made this comment on the very small size of the group of lesbian headed families from which Professor Golombok extracted her study. She stated that it is wonderful to have 39 randomly selected lesbian families but it is too few to say anything about and that to give an example of a recent study done by a colleague of sexuality, the National Social Life Study, any group that had fewer than 50 representatives was never mentioned and 39 is a very small number of lesbian families.

This is just to deal with the academic work cited by my colleague Senator Bacik. This is a problem that arises where the studies are not longitudinal, they are based on small samples and often rely on people's perceptions of how they themselves are doing. This is important.

I find it quite credible that some studies of lesbian families, for example, of same sex lesbian couple headed families, would show that there is lots of nurturing and lots of good stuff going on. I have no difficulty with that at all. My point would be, first, that those advocating that a small number of studies allow us to make this radical social change are asking us to take on a great deal. Second, those studies may well prove to be unsatisfactory. Third, there are other studies which suggest otherwise. Fourth, when one looks at lesbian couples then one must ask what are the implications of that for same sex male couples and whether they perform to the same standard in the perception of the limited studies that have taken place.

Can we really afford to drive all of this debate on the basis of statistics in surveys? When we come back to the core point and regardless of whether one can find a statistic to show it in the short term, it is the experience of the centuries and the intuition of most reasonable people that fathers and mothers do make a difference, that there is a difference between a father and a mother and that gender is not just a social construct. That is the majority reasonable opinion in our society.

That is not to say that one will not find situations where through force of circumstances, for example, a heterosexual couple splits up and a natural parent finds himself or herself in a same sex relationship. One can always point to those exceptional situations. One can point to cases where a person dies in a car accident and a widow or a widower is left to bring up a family. Nobody wants to make any adverse comments about those people, but are we going to pretend that it does not really matter that such has happened or that it does not really matter that the child no longer has the society of a father or a mother with all the complementarity that the presence of both biological parents brings to the situation?

As we talk about studies, there was a meta-analysis, that is, a higher level analysis of existing studies, of all available meaningful data concerning the impact of marriage and other forms of relationship on child welfare. By the way, I am not interested in quoting partisan studies. I am happy to show any studies I quote to my colleagues, whether they agree or disagree with me. Everything must be tested in the rigorous light of day here. The study to which I refer was in Child Trends. It was done in June 2002. It was a bipartisan American meta-study of various family and marriage studies called Marriage From a Child's Perspective: How Does Family Structure Affect Children, and What Can We Do About It?" Here is the money quote, as they say:

[R]esearch clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage. Children in single parent families, children born to unmarried mothers and children in stepfamilies or cohabiting relationships face higher risks of poor outcomes than do children in intact families headed by two biological parents. Parental divorce is also linked to a range of poorer academic and behavioural outcomes among children. There is thus value for children in promoting strong, stable marriages between biological parents.

Once again, this is not to deny the heroism and the value of exceptional cases. This is not to deny — the Minister, Deputy Harney, stated that the worst day in Government was better than the best day in Opposition — that the best day in a non-traditional family is far better than the worst day in a traditional family, and nobody denies that at all. However, what we must do if we care about the common good and if we care about the welfare of children is promote what works best, not with the needs and aspirations of adults in mind in the adoption context but with the needs and just desserts of children in mind.

That quote is backed up by other studies and reports. It is not today's topic but it was raised by my colleague, Senator Bacik, in the context of cohabitation that there is an anomalous situation where the Bill does not refer to the possibility of adoption by cohabiting couples. People's increasing tendency to cohabit before marriage is leading to an increase of births outside marriage and this is bad for children according to research. Some 44% of British babies are now born to unmarried parents according to a new report compiled by researchers at the University of Essex. Researchers estimate that cohabitees are likely to make up three quarters of those parents. John Ermisch, professor of economics at the University of Essex, stated that the rise in births outside marriage is a real cause for concern. The instability of these unions means that more British children will spend significant parts of their childhood in families with only one parent and this appears to have long-term negative consequences.

Professor Ermisch stated that many of these cohabiting relationships are doomed to failure, leaving the baby in a single-parent family, and that the time couples spend living together in cohabiting unions before either marrying each other or separating is usually very short, the median duration being about two years. He stated that the unions that produce children are much less likely to be converted into marriage and more likely to break up than childless ones. He stated that only 35% of cohabiting couples stay together until their children turn 16, compared with 70% of married couples. So much for the statistics.

The reason I mention all this is to make quite clear that it does matter what our adoption legislation envisages in terms of who may apply to adopt and that again is without denying the fact that in certain circumstances, indisputably one will find children in situations that do not conform to the socially preferred model. That is not to say we cannot confer generous rights on those children who must all be cherished equally, but it should not be glibly extracted from it that we must cherish equally all the relationships that give rise to those situations. I think this is what the Constitution speaks of when it acknowledges equality but also says the State shall have regard to differences in capacity and function. One can fully acknowledge the incontestable dignity of each human person, whether he or she is gay or straight, married or unmarried, while at the same time saying that if one wants children to have the best possible upbringing, the State must work hard to protect the traditional, time-honoured and socially successful model. That is what this is about. On that basis, if the welfare of the child is paramount, we will start much earlier in this debate asking what works best for the children and how we promote it.

I take issue, therefore, with Senator Bacik's approach which is that we will have civil partnership anyway so there is nothing too bad about pre-empting it by envisaging that same sex couples might adopt. I have concerns about the civil partnership legislation and the inherent unfairness in it, although now is not the time to rehearse that. The State, however, does not propose to envisage adoption in the civil partnership legislation and therefore it would not only pre-empt the legislation but dictate its content and go further than the Government proposes by envisaging same-sex adoption and do so in a manner that would blithely disregard what the Constitution requires with regard to Senator Norris's earlier point.

Following the logic of Senator Norris's position, that it is insulting to the Canadians to deny that a marriage valid in Canada is not valid before the Irish courts, where would we stop? If we follow that logic, we make our constitutional values subject to the whim of every nation on earth. I read recently that there is a body of respectable opinion in Canada that proposes the legalisation of polygamy. The argument, although I do not know if the Canadian Government accepts it, is that if same-sex relationships are to be equated with marriage on the basis that the two people love each other, why not equate polygamy with marriage? There may be more than two people but they are of different genders so it is more like traditional marriage in that respect. This is where we go when we abandon first principles and make hollow claims on the basis of what we claim equality means and depart from objective scrutiny of the good of the human person and the common good.

I am not afraid to hear the best arguments in favour of same-sex marriage, relationships or adoption. I prefer to regard relationships as a private matter where no one would be scorned but neither should the State pretend that there are relationships equivalent to traditional marriage given the importance of the complementarity of the sexes. I am willing to have a respectful debate in which all the issues are teased out without fear or favour or insult or rancour.

I do not expect the Government to accept these amendments. With due respect to the sincerity of their proponents, I believe these amendments are destructive in what they envisage in terms of social policy. That is to be regretted. I reiterate that the civil partnership legislation does not envisage provision for same-sex adoption but that is not enough. The Government owes it to us to vocalise and express its clear support for a model of adoption and family life that acknowledges the primacy and preferred status of the two-parent, father and mother model for the upbringing of children, not because we want to reject anyone's sincere or legitimate aspirations but because we want to promote objectively what is in the best interests of children and society.