Today Labour LGBT launches a leaflet on why LGBT people should vote yes to the Lisbon Treaty. You can see the leaflet here and here.
The leaflet says that Lisbon is ‘Good for Gays’ (Lesbians, Bisexuals and Transgendered people disappear again for the sake of alliteration) and makes three points
First
Ireland’s involvement in Europe lead to the decriminialisation of homosexuality. Lisbon will make it illegal to discriminate against someone because of sexual orientation against Europe.
Problem one – It was the European Court of Human Rights which ruled against Ireland in the Norris vs. Ireland case. This court and the Convention of Human Rights are not EU institutions – but are part of the Council of Europe. It was the Council of Europe’s committee of ministers/minister’s representatives which on a six monthly basis following the Norris ruling asked the Irish Government when it was going to decriminalise homosexuality. While the ECHR is now acceded to by the EU it’s a pity other more current events where the EU has been important for LGBT’s were not highlighted. The Treaty does reinforce principles of Equality gained in other treaties and that’s what Lisbon is about – making the other treaties and reforms work.
If Labour LGBT were trying to say queers are safer in a fully functioning EU than outside with Cóir or the neo liberals or indeed a morality police pulling the nations strings why not just say it!
Point two
Equal pay for women was introduced because of Ireland’s involvement with Europe. This treaty will make it illegal to discriminate against someone because of their gender identity across Europe.
No problems there
Point three –
This treaty guarantees the right to assemble, helping to support pride organisations and marches across Europe.
Shh don’t mention Poland’s opt out from the Charter of Fundamental Freedoms, in fact the Polish LGBT movement are concerned at the opt out and the mention of public morality as one of the areas the Polish government want to maintain legislative responsibility for.
There are far stronger reasons why the Lisbon Treaty is good for LGBT’s – the citizens initiatives, developments on freedom of movement, the increased participation of MEP’s in policy making (there is an informal but effective intergroup in the European Parliament on LGBT rights which does positive cross party work). In fact more mention should be made of The Treaties of Amsterdam,. Nice etc and that Lisbon is just making these workable!
There is no doubt that Cóir will be pointing to this leaflet as an example of the fall of Ireland and I look forward to hearing Labour Party spokespeople explaining it further and standing up to the bigots. I hear that some people are saying lgbt’s should vote no because there is no hope of gay marriage being brought into law given the guarantees pertaining to family life sought by the Irish government. Maybe the Yes activists could put that self absorbed and flawed excuse for a reason to vote no in the rubbish pile?
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This is my worry about the damage that the rejection last time has already done – why were the government pandering to an unelected group like Coir on areas like social justice and morality? Over on gaycork.com there was an interesting link to the violence that erupted in Budapest at this years pride (something I read with interest as I’m going there for a week next weekend) – I definitely agree that the EU and Lisbon is GREAT for minorities and LGBT groups, but unfortunately I think groups like Ganley’s supporters (whoever they now are) and Coir are pandering to a small hardcore on this.
The real sad thing is though, I’m increasingly coming across LGBT folks who are just as rightwing and fascist as the nastiest of the old fundamentalists – sure, they want LGBT rights for themselves, but I do know at least 3 lesbians who went out of their way to vote for the Immigration Platform Candidate (or at least, they thought they did, until they discovered, to my great amusement, that they were in the wrong constituency) and openly express deeply rascist and sometimes homophobic opinions (these are women who’ve been in medium/long term gay relationships for 5-12 years).
The time is long gone unfortunately where the LGBT community could be relied upon to be compassionate to other minorities, shocking as it may seem.
Weird: http://www.tallyman.ie/?p=487
(I’m not quite sure what Tallyman is trying to say..)
All of a sudden, I feel drawn back to Sunday mass.. This weekend, at least.
Weirdness of the post aside (yup I too was confused when I read it….) I don’t think that this leaflet would offend any church goer into voting No – except maybe for crimes to graphic design. If the rumour is true I doubt Cóir could find the vein of homophobia they are trying to create.
The Tallyman article is interesting but it doesn’t really address what Suzy has already pointed out – that a lot of the pro-LGBT policies are informal and non-binding and thus not really hard evidence of a definitive pro-LGBT bias in Europe. The reason Coir are picking up on this is to them its “evidence” that the European project isn’t really giving an Irish opt-out on moral issues. They tend to see all of these issues as one single big package.
What an amazing leaflet…! are they going to publish leaflets for all communities? (catholic, black, women, children,economists,teachers,immigrants or even bloggers)
“Good for Gays, Lovely For Lesbians, Brilliant for Bisexuals and Terrific for Transgendered folks” perhaps?
Irish Election » Web roundup – Lisbon goes on despite NAMA // Sep 17, 2009 at 22:15
[...] Suzy has a look at the LGBT lisbon leaflet from Labour LGBT. They also have a video on why Lisbon is good for gays: [...]
Delighted to see the leaflet generating conversation, but just want to respond to a few points (apologies for not being brief). I admit, Good for Gays doesn’t include the other groups of LGBT – and using it as the simple tagline was not meant to cause offence. I do like Noel’s.
We picked the Norris case because it’s a case most people are aware of – and by being involved in Europe, the pressure of the ECHR did influence the decriminalization. To elaborate further on it would have taken more space than we had! We do think that LGBT people are going to be better off if Lisbon is passed, and we tried to outline briefly some reasons why it would be good if LGBT people voted yes.
Regarding the right to assemble: Suzy’s correct – we didn’t mention Poland – the Polish government secured an opt out as governments of member states often do. This doesn’t take from the text of the Charter of Fundamental Rights itself which has strong non-discrimination clauses (and will become binding if Lisbon is passed) There have been problems with Pride marches in other countries in recent years (Hungary, Latvia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Estonia) And right now in Lithuania the government is currently trying to criminalise the promotion of homosexuality in anyway. Protecting the right to assemble is a positive step.
Here’s our press release from the day: http://labour.ie/press/listing/1253095504204885.html
As part of that we do mention some of the other points why the Lisbon treaty is good for LGBT people and will continue to try and outline as many of these points as
we can between now and October 2nd.
Finally if some people are saying LGBT people should vote no because there is no hope of gay marriage being brought in – they are disregarding all the positive reasons for Irish people to vote yes. Gay marriage was never going to be something that Lisbon was going to be able to decide. Vote on the issues of the Treaty, and if you want further information about those, there’s plenty of it out there. We’re more than happy to do our best to clarify anything people want to ask us, just email lgbt@labour.ie
Thanks.
Niamh (Co-Chair Labour LGBT)