Same-Sex Marriage in Ireland?

[Interesting case percolating in Ireland.  HT:  Maggie Gallagher.]

Lesbian couple wed in Canada launch landmark lawsuit seeking marriage rights in Ireland
ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 3, 2006            

DUBLIN, Ireland A lesbian couple who were legally married in Canada launched a landmark lawsuit Tuesday seeking to win the same legal rights and financial benefits as married heterosexuals in Ireland.

Ann Louise Gilligan and Katherine Zappone — who were married in Vancouver, British Columbia, in September 2003 within months of the legalization of same-sex marriage there — are the first gay couple in Ireland to go to court to seek state recognition of a foreign marriage.         

Their action follows a similar case in Britain, where a lesbian couple unsuccessfully sued in July to have their marriage — also attained in Vancouver in 2003 — recognized under British law. Britain, unlike Ireland, already accords marriage-style rights to homosexual couples who register their commitment in legally binding "civil partnerships."

The Irish government argues that it cannot accept the women's argument partly because of Ireland's conservative 1937 constitution, which commits the state "to guard with special care the institution of marriage, on which the family is founded, and to protect it against attack." Homosexuality was illegal in Ireland until 1993.

The lawsuit in the High Court, the second-highest court in Ireland, is expected to last about three weeks and involve about a dozen witnesses testifying on behalf of the women. Whatever the outcome, legal experts expect the losing side to appeal to the Supreme Court, the ultimate arbiter of constitutional law.

A lawyer for the couple, Michael Collins, told High Court Justice Elizabeth Dunne that history was full of examples of governments outlawing relationships based on bigoted attitudes. He cited longtime laws forbidding interracial marriage in the United States that were gradually repealed, beginning in California in 1948.        

Gilligan, a Dublin college lecturer in philosophy, is Irish and a former Catholic nun. Zappone, a member of Ireland's government-appointed Human Rights Commission, is an American from Seattle, Washington. They have been a couple since the mid- 1980s when both were pursuing doctoral degrees at Boston College in the United States. Since moving to Ireland two decades ago they have worked together on a string of research projects dealing with urban poverty and feminist rights.

"We are married, happily married, living in a lifelong monogamous partnership," Zappone said outside the courthouse.

They also own two properties together,— an issue driving their demand to ave their foreign union recognized for tax purposes here.

Their legal battle began in 2004 when they challenged the Irish tax authorities' refusal to recognize the existence of their Canadian marriage. This meant they had to file tax separately, a more expensive option, and were unable to claim their full deductions for their properties.

In the longer term, when one of them dies, the other could face a struggle to exercise inheritance rights and, under current law, would face much higher tax burden than a heterosexual widow or widower.

The case, if successful, would have major implications for Ireland's unmarried couples, both heterosexual and homosexual, in this predominantly Catholic country of 4.2 million. The 2001 census identified 77,600 households involving unmarried partners — among them 1,300 homosexual couples — who must pay higher rates of income and inheritance taxes than married couples.

Denmark in 1989 became the first country to legislate for same-sex partnerships. Several other European Union members have followed suit: Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. While only some specifically recognize such partnerships as marriages, all grant homosexual couples tax, inheritance and child-rearing rights similar to those for married heterosexuals.

In the United States, only the state of Massachusetts allows gay marriage, Vermont and Connecticut permit civil unions, and more than a dozen states grant lesser legal rights to gay couples.

See the article on the web.