Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It will be hard to follow that. I welcome the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, to the House and I congratulate her on bringing forward this Bill and on her fine and powerful speech in support of it. The applause spoke for itself, as indeed did the applause for my colleague, Senator Zappone, following her passionate and moving speech, delivered, as always, with her customary eloquence.

I welcome those in the Visitors Gallery who have worked so hard for this day and for the referendum to be held and passed. We all very much hope it will be. I pay tribute to my colleague, Senator Norris, who has worked so hard for so many years on equality issues, particularly for gay and lesbian people.

It is a proud moment and I am proud indeed that this Government has finally brought forward the referendum on marriage equality. I am proud of my party, the Labour Party, and of the strong role we have played over many years in seeking to make progress on equality issues for same-sex couples, lesbian and gay people. I am proud of our partners in government in Fine Gael who have been so positive and progressive on this legislation.

It is historic. As the Minister said, Ireland will be the first country to decide the issue of marriage equality through a referendum of the people in a national jurisdiction. This is important and it is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Indeed, marriage equality is the civil rights issue of this generation. I believe that and I know it has been said before.

What is this referendum, now a little over eight weeks away, about? The key issue is that of equality and the equal right to marry for gay and straight couples. I see it as marking a final step in the journey towards equality for our lesbian and gay brothers, sisters, friends and colleagues.

Significant progress has already been made in Ireland towards equality for gay people, but only after a late start. Homosexuality was only decriminalised in this jurisdiction in 1993, some 22 years ago. Since then, we have passed legislation prohibiting discrimination on grounds of sexuality, recognising civil partnerships - that was in 2010 - and making provision for rights of children within gay families through the legislation currently passing through the Oireachtas, the Children and Family Relationships Bill. Members of this House also initiated the Employment Equality (Amendment) Bill, which will redress the issue of discrimination in schools for lesbian and gay teachers.

Equality in marriage remains the final step in that journey to equality. Throughout the world the issue of marriage equality has been gaining momentum in recent years. As others have said, since same-sex marriage was first legalised in the Netherlands in 2001 we have seen 18 countries worldwide and 37 US states legalising marriage equality and recognising marriage as an equal entity for lesbian, gay and straight couples. The US Supreme Court will rule on the issue in some months time, but only following over 60 judgments across American courts that have already recognised the right to marry for gay couples.

At the Constitutional Convention in 2013, a 79% majority voted in favour of marriage equality. Things have certainly moved on since 2006, when I appeared as one of the legal team for Senator Zappone and her partner, her wife, Ann Louise Gilligan, in their courageous case seeking recognition in Ireland of their Canadian marriage and, as a consequence, the right to marry for gay couples in Ireland. At that point, civil partnership had not been legalised. Only a small number of US states had by that time recognised marriage equality. The case failed in the High Court because the judge ruled in December 2006 that the traditional definition of marriage was confined to opposite-sex couples. She said: "The definition of marriage to date has always been understood as being opposite sex marriage." Even then, this decision lacked logic. It ignored the nature of the right to marry and the changing nature of the institution of marriage, to which the Minister referred so clearly. An argument that marriage must be confined to heterosexual couples because it was ever so amounts to circular and illogical reasoning. The truth is the definition or meaning of marriage is not fixed in any society. It has changed and evolved over time.

No doubt Éamon de Valera and the drafters of the Constitution in 1937 only thought of opposite-sex couples when they thought of marriage, although it is not defined in the Constitution. However, their understanding of marriage and our understanding of marriage are rather different because there have been so many changes over the years. The Minister spoke of the legal changes in Ireland and that at one time a woman upon marriage was the property of her husband. We should not forget that until 1990 a married man was regarded as legally incapable of raping his wife because she had given herself up to him.