Madam, - Prof Patricia Casey (February 26th), writing about the debate on same-sex marriage and the rights of parents and children in such family units, brings up two interesting issues.
Firstly, she argues that a call for equality in marriage law for same-sex couples is also an implicit call for "all combinations of adults who raise children" to be given such rights, regardless of the nature of their relationship. However, there is currently no requirement on any heterosexual couple to prove that they are in a romantic or sexual relationship prior to their marriage. Therefore, the means are already available for some "non-marital family units" to register their relationship and receive the benefits accorded to such unions. A call for same-sex marriage simply aims to extend those rights to two people of the same gender, whether or not they are in a romantic relationship.
Prof Casey further argues that legislating for the "complete neutrality between family forms" ignores the "overwhelming evidence" that children tend to do best when raised by a married mother and father. This evidence, tenuous at best, does not take into account the quality of such relationships. Is it Prof Casey's contention that a child raised by abusive, married, opposite-gender parents will tend to do better than one raised by caring, same-sex parents?
Her second argument centres on a child's purported right to both a mother and a father, stating her belief that denying such a right reduces the child to second-class citizenship. She makes no reference here, however, to the large proportion of families in this country composed of single parents, same-sex parents and other arrangements, despite earlier having mentioned that there "are and always have been" a variety of family units in this country. If she maintains that the absence of one or both biological parents is enough to condemn a child to second-class citizenship, then a first-class citizen child is rarer than she seems to think. Once again, I would contend that it is the quality of parenting that matters most to a child's wellbeing, not the gender of one or both parents. - Yours, etc,
KEVIN O'CALLAGHAN, Brunswick Street North, Smithfield, Dublin 7.