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Title: Yes Equality? Author: Workers Solidarity Movement Date: April 2016 Language: en Topics: marriage, equality, democracy, Ireland, Common Threads, gay liberation Source: Retrieved on 21st January 2022 from http://www.wsm.ie/c/marriage-equality-referendum-victory-ireland Notes: Published in Common Threads Issue 1.
We don’t understand words as simply words on their own, entirely
dependent on their definition, as one word can have many different
meanings. Context plays a big part in our understanding of words. There
are some words that leave context with the responsibility of our
understanding of what has just been said. The word “buckle”, for
example, can either mean “to connect” or “to collapse”, two meanings
opposite to each other, leaving us in need of context in order to
understand the usage of the word.
The mainstream voices in our society would lead you to believe that last
May we voted for equality. Going by the definition of “equality” alone,
without any context, one would believe that we voted in favour of
everyone being equal, no one worth more or deserving of less than anyone
else, all of us with the same status in society.
In reality, this did not happen, not by a long shot. After the votes
were counted and the Yes side won, equality did not sweep across
Ireland. Class society was not abolished, the 8^(th) amendment was not
repealed, white supremacy was not eradicated, and those on the lowest
rung of society were not suddenly placed on an even keel with the
privileged minority.
When we add the context we see that this vote for “equality” was in
regards to marriage. The right of a man and a woman to enter into the
tradition of marriage was extended to LGB+ couples. That is what
equality meant in this context.
It did not take long for the façade of “equality” to crumble away. The
slogan of “Yes Equality” was replaced with “We Need To Look After Our
Own First” when the refugee crisis was intensely brought to our
attention in September last year through the tragic image of 3-year-old
Aylan Kurdi’s dead body on a Turkish shore.
The Irish have a long history of fleeing destitution on this island in
search of a better life elsewhere. We have songs, poetry, and folklore
to remind us that hardship once drove us from our homes to foreign lands
— that is if we survived the journey unlike the many who fell victim to
the coffin ships. Yet, in spite of this we treat those who come to us in
need of the very thing that our ancestors searched for with contempt and
disdain.
Those who somehow make it to Ireland are placed into the system of
Direct Provision. Within Direct Provision adults are given an allowance
of €19.10 a week with an added €9.60 for every child they have. This
meagre allowance is all they have to buy food, clothes, cleaning
products, and everything else that human beings needs in order to
survive, and they are denied this without the right to work.
To top off our world famous Irish hospitality, refugees must live in
cramped, overcrowded accommodation with no control over where this will
be and without the right to rent somewhere else. Some have been kept in
this system and in these conditions for up to ten years. While Ireland
committed to placing 4,000 Syrian refugees into this system a number of
months ago we have thus far taken in 10.
For queer asylum seekers who have been locked out of Irish society at
every turn — alongside their straight counterparts — “Yes Equality” was
not for them, and it did nothing to help them in their circumstances,
(not that our racist laws permitted them to cast a vote anyway).
Last October, “We Need To Look After Our Own First” was edited to “We
Need To Look After Our Own — Except Travellers” when a fire broke out at
a holding site for Travellers in Carrickmines. The fire claimed the
lives of ten people, five of whom were children as well as the homes of
15 people, the very people who should fall under the category of “Our
Own”.
Yet when those 15 people were being re-located to a temporary site the
entrance to the new location was blocked by local residences, further
exposing how shallow our notion of “Yes Equality” was. The usual bigotry
was thrown around “You don’t have to live next to them, you don’t
understand”. This clearly exemplified that despite the fact that 60% of
us had voted for “equality” Ireland very clearly remains a terribly
unequal state with no understanding of what true equality means. This
may have something to do with the fact that “equality”, within or
without the context of marriage, had nothing to do with the equality
referendum vote.
The vote was about validating the idea that queer people can be just
like the normal, traditional family that fills our TV screens. They can
meet someone that they care for and enter into a monogamous committed
relationship that can lead to a piece of paper that grants the couple
access to certain state benefits and privileges and maybe even somewhere
along the way, or indeed after the piece of paper is obtained, they can
have a child or two running about the place.
Historically, marriage was designed as a patriarchal tool to trap women;
to trap them financially and sexually as well as to lock them into their
social position. Within it, women have suffered, and still to this day
continue to suffer, both physical and mental abuse, rape and even murder
at the hands of a husband. The economic side of marriage has been and
continues to be instrumental in concentrating wealth, power, and
privilege into familial ties.
The authoritarian nature of marriage as well as the power dynamic that
it creates between man and wife has been fundamental to the shaping of
society through the nuclear family. The nuclear family is a family that
consists of two (typically married) people (who are generally of the
opposite sex) and their children.
The nuclear family is considered by feminists to be the basis of all
authoritarian structure with its structure being used as a model for
society’s pecking order. The father would be seen as the leader of the
family, with his work typically being waged and outside of the home. The
mother would be seen as the family’s servant, with her work typically
occurring within the home and without a wage. Any sons would be treated
like miniature family leaders and daughters as if they were in training
for future servitude.
The tone within the home goes something along the lines of “obey your
father”, “listen to your father”, “wait ‘til your father gets home then
you’ll be sorry”, “wait until your father hears about this”. The lesson
that the child is learning is to obey and to kneel to authority.
When this setting occurs within the home, the child is being socialised
to obey and respect authority, and to accept a pecking order and to
understand it as something that is normal and natural; that some are
naturally of a higher social level than others and consequently some are
of a lower level. This structure is invaluable to our bosses and
politicians in keeping us docile and content with our lot.
Of course, nowadays, marriage has adapted to the change of shape that
our society has taken. Women are no longer the property of their husband
and can no longer be raped with impunity. While housework still remains
unwaged and is not considered a valid form of labour, women do generally
seek employment outside of the home, while continuing to labour inside
the home.
Fragments of traditional marriage, however, still remain. Marriage is
still “an economic arrangement, an insurance pact” (Goldman) which
brings with it its own benefits and privileges. We voted for queer
couples to gain access to these state benefits and privileges.
Those queers who will enter into marriage will do so with an air of
“love is love” and “we are just like your family” – notions that can
have an adverse effect onto us queers who do not mirror our heterosexual
counterparts; those of us who do deviate from the norm.
Instead of truly fighting homophobia and heteronormativity (the idea
that it is normal to be heterosexual and anything else is abnormal)
mainstream LGBT society surrendered to the norm and organised around a
phenomenon that is not so radical; something that would be respectable
and acceptable to those who ten years ago would have been shrieking in
horror at the very thought of a Gay Pride parade.
Of course, there are those who marry in order to remain in their
spouse’s country of origin, this leads to the question of whether or not
refugees have to enter into a same-sex marriage before we accept them
here in Ireland? Is that what it takes to get a chunk of this “Yes
Equality” pie? What would have looked much more like “Yes Equality”
would have been destroying the borders, and the nationalist laws that
prevent open access from country to country.
The Yes vote brought with it excitement and emotions. Tears of happiness
soaked the faces of those old enough to remember darker and more
homophobic times. The majority of society told us that they accepted us;
but no matter how many rainbows you dress society up in, we still live
in a straight society.
Why didn’t we strive to destroy the straight society; to create a new
society based on our own desires for freedom, solidarity, love and
equality. We have accepted queer acceptance in a straight society, the
very same society that forced us to go door-to-door begging for
something that our straight counterparts do not even need to consider –
are we really content with our lot?
The same door that was slammed in our faces by the society that Catholic
Ireland created was slammed in the faces of refugees – has rainbow
flavoured neo-liberalism stripped us of our compassion?
It’s “Yes Equality To All” or it’s “Yes Equality To None” – the decision
is ours.