GAY TRUTH

Ireland has stripped away laws which protected the rights of people to freedom of religion when in conflict with gay rights. The move comes just weeks after the first Irish gay weddings went ahead, following a referendum to allow gay marriage earlier this year. Following the landslide defeat for opponents of same sex marriage – the referendum was lost by 62 per cent in favour of gay marriage to 38 per cent against – Ireland’s Parliament has been busy with a slate of reforms designed to cement the rights of gay people within Irish law . On Tuesday night the latest bastion against religious intolerance was swept away, as the Dáil voted unanimously to repeal Section 37 of the state’s Employment Equality Act. Section 37 granted specific exemptions for “religious, educational or medical institutions” when it came to gay rights, allowing them “to maintain the religious ethos of the institution”. Removing the section will mean that LGBT teachers will be free to talk to school pupils abo...

Just days before Irish citizens voted in favor of same-sex marriage in May, a headline in the Independent warned: “surrogacy fears could sink ‘ Yes ’ campaign.” During the final weeks leading up to the referendum, government leaders and advocates of the “yes” vote to redefine marriage tried to distance themselves from the issue of surrogacy for fear that the two issues might be conflated. Such behavior offers a telling though little discussed insight that’s particularly applicable for our own nation, especially now that the Supreme Court has ruled that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage: A growing number of LGBT activists actively oppose surrogacy, even though gay men are the primary users of the practice. Surrogacy is not legal in Ireland, though some commentators believe that the acceptance of same-sex marriage will lead to its inevitable acceptance. In an interview leading up to the vote in Ireland, Justice Kevin Cross, the head of the Referendum Commission , ...