Gay Marriage Equality

The Gay Marriage Equality debate has brought with it a debate about the nature of equality and our perception of terms like homophobia and homophobic with RTE recently (Jan. 2014) paying out €85K for the slanderous use of those terms against a the traditional marriage group the Iona Institute. Drag queen Rory O'Neill - alias 'Miss Panti', later defended his use of the terms in a youtubed address at the Abbey Theater while Colm O'Gorman referenced EU Parliament definitions which suggest Irish law is at odds with emerging European norms. Beyond terminology there's a need for deeper consideration to be given to the concept of equality itself lest the entire debate turns into a Pythonesque parody of the Life of Brian. Biological constraints cannot be overcome not got gays nor for many infertile couples such that our concept of rights as entitlements needs to be examined and challenged. I intended focusing on this debate over the year ahead - on the lead up to the Irish constitutional referendum on marriage equality - and adding to this folder as I go along. Where charges apply it is for documents which I've converted using Nuance software to pdf format. The charge is nominal, no more than you'd drop into a buskers hat, but hopefully it will finally amount to something like a minimum hourly wage. Where document s are simply being relayed and commented on their is no charge. @paulvcassidy