Dear all,
I need to complain about the 'No campaign' marriage equality referendum posters publicly displayed all over Cork city and, I assume, the rest of the country. Apart from their extreme offensiveness, I believe that they contravene this country's equality legislation on grounds of gender and sexual orientation: by implying that gay parents are unable to raise a child properly, that a child 'needs' straight parents (one of each gender, to be precise) and that the presence of gay people within the institution of marriage somehow devalues that institution. There are countless other examples.
Substitute race for sexual orientation as the focus for this campaign, and you have apartheid. Substitute religion, and you have penal laws and Naziism.
Please tell me you will not stand by and let our nation's children witness yet another abuse of one population by another on grounds we have already defined in our laws as being protected from such action.
When I called the Referendum Commission to complain about these posters, they told me it was a Garda matter. At Anglesea Street Garda Station they told me it wasn't a criminal matter (though I stressed that I thought a law was bring broken) and directed me to yourselves and to the city council. The council said it was a matter for the Office of the Taoiseach, who told me it was a Department of the Environment matter, and that department transferred my call to an unnamed man who said he would call me back. He hasn't.
I know it's easy to let this stuff slide and see if you get re-elected, but discrimination on this level will haunt us through history if we don't speak up about it and stop it. Having exhausted every other avenue for doing this, I now appeal to you. I'll keep this letter to show future generations that I didn't stay quiet and allow this to happen.
Best,
Kathy D'Arcy
I need to complain about the 'No campaign' marriage equality referendum posters publicly displayed all over Cork city and, I assume, the rest of the country. Apart from their extreme offensiveness, I believe that they contravene this country's equality legislation on grounds of gender and sexual orientation: by implying that gay parents are unable to raise a child properly, that a child 'needs' straight parents (one of each gender, to be precise) and that the presence of gay people within the institution of marriage somehow devalues that institution. There are countless other examples.
Substitute race for sexual orientation as the focus for this campaign, and you have apartheid. Substitute religion, and you have penal laws and Naziism.
Please tell me you will not stand by and let our nation's children witness yet another abuse of one population by another on grounds we have already defined in our laws as being protected from such action.
When I called the Referendum Commission to complain about these posters, they told me it was a Garda matter. At Anglesea Street Garda Station they told me it wasn't a criminal matter (though I stressed that I thought a law was bring broken) and directed me to yourselves and to the city council. The council said it was a matter for the Office of the Taoiseach, who told me it was a Department of the Environment matter, and that department transferred my call to an unnamed man who said he would call me back. He hasn't.
I know it's easy to let this stuff slide and see if you get re-elected, but discrimination on this level will haunt us through history if we don't speak up about it and stop it. Having exhausted every other avenue for doing this, I now appeal to you. I'll keep this letter to show future generations that I didn't stay quiet and allow this to happen.
Best,
Kathy D'Arcy