Civil Partnership – what/where are the responses?
Posted by Maman Poulet on 31 Jul 2008 at 12:40 am | Tagged as: Irish Politics, Same Sex Partnerships
Update: I’ve heard from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform (I have readers there don’t you know!) that they will still accept submissions on the Scheme of legislation for the next few weeks – so if you have opinions get writing/submitting!!
The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform’s deadline for submissions to the Scheme of the Civil Partnership Bill passed last week.
Anyone got a response document out there that they would like to share?? I’ve not seen anything published beyond the initial press releases. Surely there is more in the public domain that the great letter in yesterday’s Irish Times?? Are they all so secret that nobody else can see them? And what public consultations took place in the last month regarding the responses? I know I’ve been laid up and out of the loop but I didn’t hear of anything?
The only kind of consultation I’m aware of is a half-day seminar the ICCL ran two weeks ago. There was no press release on it, as they didn’t want it to be the start of a campaign or anything like that. They just invited three people to give legal perspectives on the proposed bill….
Certainly at least one of our “own” organisations has done a submission and I’m sure marriagequality has too- but transparency has never been a strong point with L&G organisations here, so I guess you’re right maman- its all “secret” cos that’s what makes them feel powerful.
I’m kinda appalled in a way, but not surprised given the ‘non-political’ way in which this has been mis/managed. By that I mean ‘citizens’ are again marginalized in a policy-making process. Who is policy/legislation for?
Yep the letter in the I/T, from the now adult offspring of a lesbian couple, was great as an exemplar of how politics can be ‘done’ in the public sphere. But why did we like it?
It exemplied that what is needed – in GBLT politics and in wider sexual politics – is a connection with embodied practices and dilemmas about how we can/cannot live our lives as sexual citizens.
While establishing policies on sexuality are all very well (and necessary!), policy and policy-making processes tend to alienate citizens as a matter of course and to often neglect the impact of sexual traditions. I’m not sure that citizens are that “unwelcome” in policy making, but they complicate processes as citizens don’t generally bring a policy-maker’s gaze to bear on issues. Citizens want to tell their stories, dilemmas, etc. Hence, we really like the Irish Times letter as it sheds light, in a partial, but embodied way, on how we want to live. Perhaps the other ‘ferret in the woodshed’ for our generation – at least for men – is the legacy of gender roles in Irish culture, which constrains many people:
(cf. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/newsfeatures/2008/0726/1216917595898.html)
Sexual politics would “do” more for us if we started to acknowledge and work these tensions as a productive way of theorising, but for now we’ve got another instance of don’t ask, don’t tell (or at least do it quietly).
[...] submissions to them regarding the published Heads of Bill for the Civil Partnerships Bill. Suzy has managed to find out that they’re still taking submissions, so let’s keep that going, and try to actually [...]
There are some articles in this months GCN on the issue. One is an article similar to the IT letter. Another by Fergus Ryan concludes one article “Civil partnership delivers well over 90% of the rights and obligations that marriage confers. Fears that the bill would be a watered down measure …. have not come to pass”
I’m not entirely convinced about all that though. One of the things that hugely worries me is that Taxation and Social Welfare will not be in this bill but separately in a finance bill presented at the budget – this worries me because – the goverment could potentially give something this way but they could just as easily take it away this way.
In a sense what I am trying to say is I do not believe that these proposal amount to “full civil partnership” as proposed by Colley
Neil has blogged (more articulately) here about what I am trying to say
http://www.neilward.ie/?p=20
What annoys me a lot is that ALL of the activist organisations have not tried to engage grassroots, to inform or educate before coming up with their position.
An example of this would be – is the LGBT community aware that the proposed bill will not include taxation and social welfare provisions – is there any group actually trying to inform or educate. Unfortunately in my opinion the answer is no!
The mainstream medias interest in parent issues is welcome
http://www.herald.ie/lifestyle/parents/growing-up-with-my-lesbian-parents-1444757.html
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/lsquoi-was-never-picked-on-for-being-the-son-of-lesbians–just-for-having-an-english-accentrsquo-1445345.html
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/relationships/me-and-my-mums-1445343.html
[...] reception in Fianna Fáil. No word of late as to any consultations and discussions following the publication of the heads of the Bill and call for responses – although I’ve heard there’s a fight or twenty ahead to get the legislation debated. [...]