Irish ruling on gay marriage

2004-11-09 14:27

Dublin - A lesbian couple who wed in Canada can seek to have their union legally recognised in Ireland, a judge ruled on Tuesday in a case he predicted would have deep consequences for this predominantly Catholic country.

High Court Justice Liam McKechnie said lawyers representing Ann Louise Gilligan and Katherine Zappone had presented an arguable case that merited a full hearing, likely to take place next year.

The couple - who were married in British Columbia in September 2003 within months of the legalisation of same-sex marriage there - are the first gay couple in Ireland to go to court to seek state recognition of a foreign marriage.

They are demanding that Ireland's tax collection agency, the Revenue Commissioners, allow them to file as a married couple rather than as two single people, which involves paying more tax.

More than just tax

But the judge noted that the case "isn't simply about tax bands." He noted that in a country where homosexuality itself was outlawed until 1993, any move to accord gay couples the same legal rights as husbands and wives would have "profound ethical, cultural and religious" ramifications.

He also cautioned that his ruling offered no indication as to whether the couple's complaint would be upheld or rejected, merely that it contained sufficient merit to be heard.

Zappone, a member of Ireland's government-appointed Human Rights Commission, and Gilligan, a Dublin philosophy lecturer, have been partners for 23 years and live together in Brittas, a beachside resort south of Dublin. They have worked together on poverty research and feminist rights projects since the early 1980s.

Their lead lawyer, Gerard Hogan, argued on Monday that neither Ireland's 1937 constitution nor its more recent tax laws explicitly defines marriage as solely between a man and a woman.

Hogan, one of Ireland's most prominent experts on constitutional law, said the Revenue Commissioners "have discriminated against them in an unjust and invidious manner, in breach of their constitutional rights and the European Convention on Human Rights."

He conceded that the Irish Constitution drafted 67 years ago by then-Prime Minister Eamon de Valera undoubtedly presumed that "marriage" meant between a husband and wife, but argued that constitutional law should not be trapped within "the permafrost of 1937."

The case, if granted a full hearing on Tuesday, could have major implications for Ireland's unmarried couples, both heterosexual and homosexual, in this predominantly Catholic country of 3.9 million. The 2001 census identified 77 600 households involving unmarried partners, among them 1 300 homosexual couples.

Under Irish law, married couples enjoy advantages over unmarried couples, who pay higher income and inheritance taxes.

- AP