Half of us say gays should be allowed to get married
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By Sarah Neville
Tuesday Apr 1 2008
MORE than half of Irish people are in favour of gay marriage and 86pc believing the children of gay couples should have the same heritance rights.
According to a new poll, 58pc of people are of the view that gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to tie the knot.
One quarter (26pc) believe that they should be allowed to form civil partnerships but not to marry.
This Lansdowne Market Research for MarriagEquality shows a growing support among the public for civil marriage in the last couple of years.
In November 2006, a poll for the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN) found that 51pc of people thought gay couples should be allowed to marry.
In 2006, a third of people thought that gay couples should form civil partnerships rather than get married. Now just a quarter of people hold that view.
The poll reveals that twice as many Irish people favour civil marriage rather than civil partnership, which is what the government is proposing, for gay and lesbian couples.
Indeed, 60pc of those polled agreed that it was unfair that gay and lesbian couples are excluded from getting married in a registry office.
In addition, an overwhelming 86pc of people agree that children of gay and lesbian parents should have the same family rights as other children.
EQUALITY
Co-chair of MarriagEquality, Grainne Healy has said that the poll is evidence of an emerging view that there should be full equality for gay and lesbians.
“We have been saying that there is a demand for marriage equality for gay and lesbian people. This national poll, carried out by an independent research company, is data based proof of our own anecdotal evidence,” said Ms Healy.
“Significantly, it underlines a consistent and positive trend over two years. When we compare these results with previous research and polls carried out since February 2006 we see those attitudes have stayed consistent,” she added.
This Wednesday when the Dail resumes the Government is proposing to introduce draft legislation on civil partnership.
However, the MarriagEquality group is opposed to civil partnership in the place of civil marriage.
They argue that it will create a separate but unequal institution for gay and lesbian couples.
“While civil partnership will indeed satisfy the needs of some couples, it will not satisfy the needs of couples who want to get married.”
“The Government has been saying that Irish people are not ready for civil marriage for gay and lesbian couples. This poll and previous polls clearly indicate otherwise,” argues Ms Healy.
- Sarah Neville
