In the print edition, a graphic accompanies the article below and it shows two pie charts, with the following text.
Would you be concerned if you had a child who was gay?
Not concerned: 53%
Concerned: 37%
Don’t know: 10%
Would you be concerned if you had a brother or sister who was gay?
Not concerned: 56%
Concerned: 35%
Don’t know: 9%]
Sunday Independent, 10 February 2008

Homosexuality is a family matter

How would you feel if a close relative invited you to their same-sex wedding, asks Donal Lynch
By Donal Lynch
Most polls that have asked about gay issues in Ireland in the last five years reveal ever-growing levels of acceptance of gay people. It has been variously shown that people overwhelmingly don’t have a problem with homosexuality, are in favour of gay marriage and wouldn’t care if a member of their favourite boy band turned out to be homosexual.
But this is all in the abstract, involving other people. When you ask people what their attitudes would be if someone in their own family turned out to be gay, people are far less positive.
Over a third of people surveyed in the Sunday Independent’

s Millward Brown IMS poll said that they would be ‘concerned’ if their child or sibling turned out to be gay. Now there’s a number of ways of interpreting that word “concern”. The first would be to read it as being synonymous with “worry”.
This is perhaps understandable. Most parents would wish the easiest lives possible for their kids. Anything that they think is going to get in the way of their progeny’s success, love, happiness or their ability to fit in, is of course going to make them fret a bit.
The memory of our former age of bigotry is still strong. Anyone old enough to have adult children who grew up in Ireland during an era when homosexuality was illegal, when gay men could be beaten up with impunity on the street and when Supreme Court judges were still speaking of “unnatural acts”.
The poll bears this out, showing that people in their fiftieSeand sixties are more likely to be “concerned”. But even much younger people would have some cause for concern, as parents.
Anyone my age or older can clearly remember the HIV hysteria of the 1990s. Even today the word “gay” is the slur word of choice in most playgroundSeand gay people still do not have full equal rights under the law. Whatever else you can say about being gay it’s certainly not easier than being straight. So perhaps the families are right to be fearful.
But there is, I would suggest, another dimension to the “concern” that is shown towards gay children or siblings. Having an embodiment of an issue up close and personal forces people who consider themselves middle clasSeand impeccably liberal to confront their own prejudiceSeand discomfort.
The most vehement discrimination that most young gay people will ever encounter will be within their own families.
You might think that gay marriage, as a sort of general concept, can’t do any harm but how would you feel about attending your own son’s wedding to another man? You might not care that your sister is in a relationship with another women but will you feel comfortable explaining that to your own children?
If you felt your child was the victim of homophobic abuse at school, would you feel confident enough to support them? Issues like these are so much easier to feel smugly right-on about when they involve characters in a television programme.
Bearing out this interpretation, is the finding that we are concerned about siblings as about children being gay (35 per cent).
In general, siblings do not fret about each other’s well being to the same extent that their parents worry about them.
So it’s a fairly safe bet to say that what they mean by these responses is not that they are fretting that a gay brother or sister might end up unhappy. It’s “concerned” as in “disturbed” or “made uneasy”.
The poll breaks down responses by background, age and geographical area, but it is also interesting to see them broken down by gender.
Women are in general more comfortable with the idea of someone being gay than men.
Most gay people would feel far more comfortable coming out to their mother or sister than to their father or brother. And where there iSean issue, it is the female members of the family who are usually the ones to broker a truce.
Overall though, I take this poll as a hopeful sign. Over half of all respondents in the Millward Brown IMS survey said that they would have no concern with their child or sibling being gay.
Just ten years ago the pie chart showing these response would have looked very different.
But there is a way to go before the polls show that parents will give the same benefit of the doubt to their own offspring that they give to other people’s kidSeand remember that tolerance begins at home.
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Cathal Kelly

Share your Story to Make the Difference

GLEN (Gay Lesbian Equality Network) needs gay, lesbian and bisexual individualSeand coupleSeand their families or friends to join us in talking to the media over the coming weekSeand months. Would you be willing to join this campaign?

The Story so Far ”

The last twenty years have seen great progress for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. We have worked actively for progress in law such as the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1993 and the Equal StatuSeand Employment Equality Acts in the 1990s. Social progress has been led by more and more lesbian and gay people living their lives openly and finding support and acceptance from families, friendSeand work colleagues.

However there remain some very significant barriers to equality for lesbian and gay people, in particular the lack of legal recognition of our relationshipSeand families. While this may sometimes seem an abstract concept, it brings real and significant hardships to coupleSeand families, especially in times of vulnerability the breakdown of a relationship; death; ill-health and in unequal treatment in financial matters, including pensions, property and taxation. And that list doesn’t include the status element of public recognition of relationships. Whether you’re in a relationship or not, GLEN believes that you should have the right and choice to avail of the same legal protection and social recognition that is available to heterosexual couples. This will help deliver full equality for gay, lesbian and bisexual people.

All political parties now support legal recognition of same-sex relationshipSeand the Government has committed to introducing civil partnership for same sex couples. While GLEN’s goal is the introduction of civil marriage for same-sex couples, our immediate focus is to ensure that any civil partnership proposals are principled, comprehensive and equality-based.

The crucial first step in this process will be the publication of the Heads of Bill at the end of March 2008. The government in drafting the Heads of Bill will be making critical decisions. Will same-sex couples get the same rightSeand responsibilities as married couples? What, if any, of the protections in civil marriage will be withheld? Will same-sex parents be able to establish legal rightSeand responsibilities for their children? Will parents be able to jointly adopt? And there are many other key decisions to be made.

How can you help?

You can make a difference in ensuring the right decisions are made. The experience from other countries demonstrates that gay people’s storieSeand life experiences are crucial in harnessing the support of the public and policy-makers. When lesbian, gay and bisexual people are invisible to politicians our issues are ignored or misunderstood. When we share our stories, the public and policy makers begin to understand the issueSeand support change and new legislation.

We have TDs saying that they’ve never been asked for equality in civil marriage, or for any protections for lesbian and gay relationships. Or saying that they don’t know what the issues are, or how lesbian and gay people are not treated equally. They often have a perception that it’s all over already’.

Sharing our stories through the media is critical in making the difference. GLEN gets numerous requests from the media every week for lesbian, gay and bisexual people to participate in a story. We need you to tell your story, so that real life lesbian and gay people, coupleSeand familieSeand their experiences can feature across the media; so that the public and politicians will understand our issueSeand so that this legislation can be as good as it needs it to be.

GLEN needs gay, lesbian and bisexual individualSeand coupleSeand their families or friends to join us in talking to the media over the coming weekSeand months. Would you be willing to join this campaign?

While this may be new and different for you. GLEN will provide you with media training, to give you the necessary information and support to help you feel more comfortable and confident about doing media work. You don’t need to be an expert on the legal or policy issues you already are an expert in your own experience and situation, and that’s the story that is critical in persuading the public and legislature of the changes needed.

If you feel however that media work is not for you, there are other areas where you can make a significant difference at this critical time. for example, by visiting your local TD.

If you would like to get involved in any way no matter how small or would like any further information please contact:

Odhr n Allen 086-3405654 or odhranallen@glen.ie;

Sandra Gowran 087 7960615 sandragowran@glen.ie;

Davin Roche on 087-1319519 or at davinroche@glen.ie

If you would prefer to visit your local TD contact Marriage Equality, who are running the campaign You’re not out until you’re out to your TD. As TDs will be debating the partnership proposals in the D il, raising our issues with them at a local level can have a significant impact. Contact Moninne Griffiths marriagequality@gmail.com 4732605 or GLEN for further information.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Independent on Sunday (08.07.07) had an Interview by Cole Moreton with Drew Nelson, of whom there is a photograph, according to the caption he is Grand Secretary of the Grand [Orange] Lodge [of Ireland, presumably] – his actual title may be slightly different. There is a strap-banner Northern Ireland and under it is the headline Orange Order marches on, but now it’s a festival. Which has a rather disapproving ring to it. The point being that the Orange Order is being given money from various funds to ‘clean up its act’. The Order got itself involved in the ‘stand-off’ at the Drumcree, County Armagh churchyard. It waSean uncharacteristically volatile reaction to a problem that had already been resolved.

The Order (and its – many – affiliated bodies) had damped down the reaction by the Protestant community in Northern Ireland to the prorogation of ‘Stormont’. The latter was the venue of the local sub-Parliament. It was got rid of in May 1972. The suspicion was that this was the first act in a ‘sell-out’ to the IRA. The Dublin government was not in a position to sustain its own economy at that point. It did not want to assume responsibility for Northern Ireland ‘ quite apart from the mayhem which would have ensued if an attempt had been made to expel it from the UK State. The Orange Order issued statementSeand publications to the effect that ‘Stormont’ had been something of an incubus, getting between the people of the six countieSeand those in Great Britain. This headed-off a fascist development called Ulster Vanguard.

The situation at Drumcree arose out of the fact that a housing estate had been built on part of the Portadown Orange district’s route back to the town, from Drumcree. This estate was entirely Catholic in population, and they objected to the march for a number of years. An agreement was come to that the route would be used without any of the ‘triumphalist’ trappings of Orange marches. This was adhered to by the locals in Portadown. But outsiders, including Dr. Paisley, who is not a member of the Order, decided to make an issue of the matter. They marched down the Garvaghey Road and gloated about ‘showing the Union flag’, without a hint of irony or embarrassment about that word ‘Union’.

Probably the whole Protestant community was roused by the Garvaghey Road situation. It looked like a straightforward case of a Protestant group being discriminated against. The above situation arose in 1995, I happened to be living in east Belfast at the time, and there was a great deal of tension about the matter. Twelve months on, the situation for most reasonable people had changed. They’d had a year to think. The first matter that came to mind was to wonder why there was no tension about getting to the church (for a Service). It became obvious that the Portadown District used one route to get to the church, and another to return to base. Every other Orange demonstration (now called ‘march’ due to media pressure – the old, unaggressive term was ‘walk’) uses the same route to and from its place of origin.

The Order was forced by die-hards in the local District to support a series of confrontations with the police and army. To uphold its sovereign right to annoy its neighbours, (with whom they had made a reasonable agreement – and then, had themselves, been blackmailed into breaking the agreement by people who saw it as a piece of ‘ more Loyal than thou’ grandstanding). These people, they included Ian Paisley and David Trimble were nowhere to be seen when the ‘Loyalist’ paramilitaries moved-in, and actually fired shots at ‘their’ police and army.

The above is to put things into perspective ‘ the Orange Order, which as, by anybody’s standards, been a moderating element in the course of the war in Northern Ireland ‘ was badly wrong-footed. It had to an extent, reinvent itself, and the above named OrangeFest is part of this.

The above could be said to be starry-eyed about the Orange Order, but it is no longer part of a power set-up. (It had a large number of seats on the Ulster Unionist Council for a century. And therefore was implicit in the running of Northern Ireland, which was not an exemplar of democratic procedure. But, it has to be said, the Order took its public duties more seriously than other elements on the Council.) More to the point, in upstart (www.upstartublishing.com), the Order seems to have taken a leaf out of NIGRA (the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association)’s book.

The Belfast LGBT Pride committee was, for ten years, a sub-committee of NIGRA. From the beginning it was made clear that the ‘march’ at the end of a festival was not going have a Mardi Gras feel to it. It was given the non-threatening name ‘Dander’ (which did not, incidentally ‘come of the top of somebody’s head’) it was clearly thought-out to deflate any objections from the ‘usual suspects’. It happened to be the Free PresbyterianSeand the Free Methodists, one a small denomination and the other minuscule-to-non-existent. They were hog-tied by the fact that railing against anybody having a ‘wee dander’ is just absurd.

There were some objections to this designation. Some young people wanted a ‘serious’ demonstration (they meant ‘solemn’, which is not the same thing as ‘serious’), but NIGRA in its publicity always underlined that the Dander was a Civil Rights demonstration. As we noted, a serious point can be made with a smile on one’s face. In fact doing it with a smile makes the point ‘ we are citizens just like you ‘ more effective. Other objections came from the sort of people produced by any small city, we ought to have taken our line from more important places. (It is worth pointing out that the use of Mardi Gras as a designation for Pride events post-dates our first Pride’s publicity efforts. Even though Mardi Gras has a specific function, Fat Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten fast. It is a bit odd applying it to week long events in high summer.) For better or worse, more important places did not have a specific term for their ‘walks’, so ‘dander’ it is.This business of a serious event like a Gay Pride / Civil Rights demonstration being put in the context of a festival, was taken up by the ICTU (Irish Congress of Trade Unions) about five years ago. The Mayday march was no longer simply to be a gathering of the faithful. It became the main event in a lengthening (as the Gay one appears to be shrivelling) festival. This includes drama, music, poetry reading – and food and drink – supplied by the growing number of ‘ethnic’ minorities in Belfast and Northern Ireland. Even the food and drink may have been (probably subconsciously) suggested by us – we had a barbecue for many years.Thus the ‘family friendly’ OrangeFest?

The ‘family friendly’ might seem a bit out of reach for an LGBT ‘dander’. Our first in 1991 had a 77 year old participant and some lesbian mothers with children ranging in age from babes in arms to seven year olds.