All eyes turn to Dundalk on the political front this weekend. They have a conference blog (looking forward to hearing from the Green Party Gay and Lesbian bloggers this weekend!) And they have a conference flickr stream as you can see from Minister Gormley’s smiling face.

And they have guest speakers…including Ann Louise Gilligan and Katherine Zappone from Marriage Equality. Not sure what the story on the children’s rights issues is…Still going on about the M word though!

Delegates are also hearing tonight from Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan of Marriage Equality Initiative, who are holding a question and answer session with a number of speakers.

Mr Gormley said the forthcoming Civil Partnership Bill may not contain everything the Green Party wanted but said it was a significant move in the right direction and would not have come about without his party’s participation in Government.

Equality campaigner Ms Gilligan and her partner Katherine Zappone are pursuing a Supreme Court case for recognition of their Canadian marriage. She told delegates that marriage is about the freedom to choose to marry the person you love.

I’m in London this weekend where they have Civil Partnerships and childrens’ rights and the sky did not fall in – far far away from Dundalk…though I did get an invite as a blogger

Missing the motion where the Green’s will complain according to today’s Irish Times (subs required)

The Greens will also strongly support “the fundamental and unquestionable human right” of same-sex couples to marry and complain about “the continuing failure” to treat them equally. Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan is working on a Civil Partnerships Bill, which will given legal, property and pensions protections to same-sex couples, but not allow a marriage ceremony. Urging Mr Lenihan to draft such legislation, the motion said a constitutional amendment should be put to the people if it is found in the future that the legislation breaches the existing Constitution.

Ah yes safe lovely cuddly couples who can financially contribute to the country and are being dissuaded from coming home to make their millions or demonstrate their talents (for what singing? actually maybe we could finally win the Eurovision if the state recognised same sex relationships!). Seriously…watch the GLEN spokes person in the news report on RTE from Saturday night (report titled Civil Partnership Reports Welcomed)

The issues raised about the lack of recognition by the couple affected are all very genuine of course – and if we could see their plight amonst all the others then maybe so many lesbians and gay men would not feel so dissaffected by those who claim to represent our views.

There are far more couples out there with one member at risk of deportation due to non EU resident status (and non recognition) who have not got any form of relationship recognition or marriage certificate. There are even more again who look like being dropped by both the lesbian and gay movement and politicians in the debates in the months to come. Those are the couples with children or with parenting intentions.

It’s time we started acknowledging how this campaign is going to be managed and dressed up in pink fluffy bows…no lavender there at all and not a babies bottle in sight. And as for poverty and disadvantage …oh but a distant memory.

I wonder how Green Party officials will feel at their next European Green getogether – you know looking in the face of Greens from those many countries who have full civil partnerships and marriage and indeed a variety of options on offer. A fine example of Green Party Action in Government.

A little reminder from wikipedia..and here’s a link to an excellent ILGA summary of the situation.

Civil partnership, domestic partnerships, Unregistered partnership or registered partnerships offer varying amounts of the benefits of marriage and are available in: Andorra, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. They are also available in some parts of Argentina, Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul), Mexico, the U.S. states of California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire (effective January 1, 2008), New Jersey, Oregon (effective January 1, 2008), Vermont, Washington state, and the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.); Uruguay (effective November 1, 2007).

In the United Kingdom, civil partnerships have identical legal status to a marriage, and partners gain all the same benefits and associated legal rights; ranging from tax exemptions and joint property rights, to next-of-kin status and shared parenting responsibilities. Partnership ceremonies are performed by a marriage registrar in exactly the same manner as a secular civil marriage. Civil unions in New Zealand are identical to British civil partnerships in their association with equivalent spousal rights and responsibilities to fully-fledged heterosexual marriage.

…

Full marriage is presently available to same-sex couples in seven countries. The Netherlands was the first country to allow same-sex marriage in 2001. Same-sex marriages are also recognized in Belgium, Canada, South Africa, Spain, and the U.S. state of Massachusetts

Irish Green Party Policy on Same Sex relationships? Marriage? Civil Unions? Rights for non registered co-habitants – ah remember that?

Private member Bills are never perfect, neither is government proposed legislation – that is what amendments are for. But in the real world private members Bills are not usually accepted unless you are Alan Shatter T.D. But with a government main party so well known for long fingering things, the sayings of Bertie at the openings of gay organisations and community centres were wearing very thin.

So in world where equality is given it’s full meaning and the Greens stand by their principles, we should have expected far far more that the rubbish promised last night and danced out in press releases as a victory. Heads of a bill published in 6 months dealing with other types of relationships and governed by some Agency – introducing new forms of half rights and lots of wrongs.

I have been berated for being too hard on the Greens – been told that I don’t know how hard they had to work on the issue to get the March ’08 commitment. If that is hard work I’d hate to see you in a real crisis lads. I’m not even one of the queers looking for use of the M (marriage) word – but with what Lenihan has hinted at and Ciaran Cuffe himself has revealed we’re not even going to get full civil partnership rights – just a load of nods and winks (Kieran Rose from GLEN called it a Hire Purchase Agreement this morning – I think that is going to stick!) hidden under a carpet along with a string of other types of friendships, blood relationships and house-sharers.

Principled Pragmatists (PP) is what Ciaran Cuffe describes his position as on Morning Ireland this morning – oh that’s far too generous- get the stuff right the first time – give Marie Geoghegan Quinn a call – she brought full equality in 14 years ago the first time round and that was sex between men she was dealing with! (Update: More on the Greens and PP over with Dermod.)

In their first major test the Greens have sold us out – keeping us in our lowly places not equal at all. Shame…

Archbishops House must be really quite happy today at the plans…I’ll be putting up the speeches from last nights debate later today for a bit of further dissemination. The Oireachtas Website is fairly inaccessible at times – people need to see how they were cast aside.

PS: Congratulations to the Lesbians and Gay Men in Uruguay who get civil partnership rights from today – so do heterosexual couples, no mention of aunts, brothers, hire purchasing or housesharers there.

Ciaran Cuffe – is this what doing a deal with the devil is all about? Today on Lunchtime on Newstalk you were laying out the various reasons why it might not be the right time to vote in favour of redebating the Labour Party’s Civil Unions Bill, a motion on which will go before the Dáil in private members time tomorrow night. The Green Party voted in favour of the Bill when in oppostion in February 2007 – yes that’s last February.

Deputy Cuffe has been talking to his Government Colleagues and getting with the programme. It seems we’ll have to wait for the Zappone/Gilligan ruling – even though this was about a foreign marriage recognition and not about civil registration of same sex partnerships – different things entirely Deputy but hey you have swallowed McDowell’s previous mantra which has passed to Brian Lenihan.

But please don’t be telling lesbians and gay men that we’re going to cost money to give equality to and that figures need to be crunched. It’s lame!!! And it’s downright offensive! You ignore the sacrifices, loss, grief, pain and poverty faced by lesbian and gay couples for decades in that chestnut.

We knew that it wouldn’t be long till there was a shining example of the Greens selling out – now they are walking all over us. Ah sure there will be some lame promise or commitment to a change in the next few years and the so called wiggle room will emerge for the Greens to save face. But it’s far too late. Most lesbians and gay men have lost faith in the Greens – and whenever legal recognition of relationships is introduced I can bet that Ciaran Cuffe will be taking to the airwaves explaining why the law won’t grant full equality and offering more lame excuses. ‘Ah we cost too much, we should accept what we get, it’s better than nothing’……..

Well I hope Thea Spyer and Edith Windsor have many more happy years together. I’m sure they have done everything they can legally to grant rights to each other, and sometime before it’s too late the law changes in the US so that their relationship can be fully granted equal status.

I’ll give lots of link love to any reader of the site that finds the word lesbian – for these boys the gay vote seems genderless.

This idea promises much and I hope to see analysis of party manifestos on issues other than the recognition of same sex unions.

Lesbians and gay men have concerns about our/their sexuality and how it interacts with health, education, policing, family rights, foreign affairs, employment, disability, ethnicity and social services. I’m not one of those people who says I’m lesbian but that’s only part of me – in fact

• I’m a lesbian and I want my health service to recognise that fact and stop asking me about contraception and presuming that I am straight. I want the health care staff who treat me to have training in lesbian health issues, to know I am more at risk of certain diseases due to homophobia and healthcare and not to presume that because I’m a lesbian I’m not at risk of other illnesses either.
• I’m a lesbian and I’m fed up hearing about young lesbians and gay men being bullied in school and want a clear policy on it in every school in the country whatever the religious ethos.
• I’m a lesbian and I want to know that all members of An Garda Siochana have been trained in lesbian and gay awareness not just a few special ones. and that if I have a problem with how I am treated by the Gardai that I have recourse to action, advocacy and support.
• I’m a lesbian and I want to know the Irish Government will not aid or support foreign governments or initiatives that sponsor hatred and murder of their lesbian and gay citizens.
• I’m a lesbian and I want to know that the Irish Government will not aid or support Irish based organisations that do not fully include women in their work and not just for window dressing.
• I’m a lesbian and I would like to see more support available to lesbians and gay men who are discriminated in work and the receipt of goods and services – we know it happens but the numbers who feel able to take cases are too low.
• I’m a lesbian and I’d like to see the 1989 Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act reviewed so that a case could actually be taken under the law and that gay bashing is also made a hate crime.
• I’m a lesbian and I recognise that other lesbians and gay men have other identities also, due to their ethnicity, family status, social status, disability, gender, geographic location, home ownership status, age, education, and religious background. My vote will go to politicians who recognise this too.

I could say about time but really it’s a bit late into the ‘game’ really and not enough. The bill only applies to same sex couples and would guarantee rights in pensions, property, family and other areas. The opportunity to guarantee full equality and not to treat lesbian and gay couples like second class citizens has been lost by the Party.

However this bill is another example of a bump on the road to Mullingar. Unlike Fine Gael’s policy on same-sex citizenship the Labour Party’s bill deals with the issue of adoption. Whether the party spokespeople actually really understand the issues involved in lesbian and gay couples parenting (ie. that it’s much more than ‘stranger’ adoption I don’t know and it will be interesting to see the issue debated further.

Update – The Ancient Order of Hibernians who assaulted Michael McDowell at the conference on the rights of Cohabitees (as live blogged by Maman Poulet!) were in the audience and making ‘trouble’ on last nights Questions and Answers. (Real Player required) Adopting other peoples children is what’s on their minds – ah lads a little biology lesson for ye – most same sex couples who are parenting are busy making their own babies. Oh and one of them said Bertie and Michael McDowell are having a relationship which is why they are so interested in the issue!

Ursula Kilkelly was very clear on her opinion on the constitution and any ban on same sex marriage – there isn’t one. Childrens’ rights were also clarified by Kilkelly, who is one of Ireland’s leading experts on the matter.

Mary Hanifin looked extremely uncomfortable listening to a lesbian woman in the audience married in Canada talking about children’s rights. Hanifin says that the Attorney General does not favour same sex marriage and the constitution does not favour it. The people don’t want gay marriage and would not vote in favour of it.

Lots of talking about domestically dependable relationships – so much emphasis from the Minister for Education (and niece daugher of Des Hanifin, Pro Life Activist and former Senator) on the two brothers/two sisters scenario to make the government look all touchy feeley and not talk about what those queers might be doing that is different which makes her grimace when she hears about lesbians having children of their own and wanting rights for their partners.

On Tuesday the Department of Justice says it will be opting out of Brussels II/Rome II, yesterday the Governments Lawyers were saying that gay couples could not get married as marriage is special protection for opposite sex couples (subs. req.), that’s after they put up dubious witnesses to give evidence.

Today we hear that the Cabinet decided to give the male partner of a terminally ill gay man Adult Dependents Allowance in respect of the ill man’s entitlement to Invalidity benefit. The Equality Authority supported the man in his case by pointing out to the Department of Social and Family Affairs that under

 Section 2(2) of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act 2005 allows the Minister to specify persons to be adult dependents. The Equality Authority contended that the Minister therefore has a discretion which may be exercised to specify the claimant and his partner as a couple and that the failure to exercise this discretion constituted discrimination and that the exercise or failure to exercise this discretion is amenable to review under the provisions of the Equal Status Acts.

 (From an Equality Authority Press Release)

In reply to the man’s claim which had been refused initially the Department said

‘having considered the circumstances of your situation, the Government have decided to process your application for qualified adult allowance and, on a without prejudice basis, to treat your partner on the same basis as the category of persons covered by the rules in force. Accordingly, provided the standard scheme criteria are met, the allowance will be paid on an ex-gratia basis together with arrears. The ex-gratia payment has now been made.

And don’t forget to bow gracefully on the way out…. ok they didn’t say that but can’t you just feel it!!

The decision to make an ex-gratia payment including back money is not precedent setting but surely some in cabinet are seeing the futility of all this confusion and discrimination?

And a note to RTE (listen here until 1pm on the 13th – its about 6 minutes into the bulletin) - the man who now gets the Adult Dependants Allowance is not the terminally ill man’s ‘friend’ – he’s his partner. Fuckers…. oh sorry dear reader but I’ve had it this week with listening to government crap and media naivety. RTE are using the term partner in other aspects of the story.

Meanwhile the Green Party has published it’s proposals for recognition of same sex relationships, so that’s FG and the Greens who have released such documents – where are the rest?