Workers Solidarity Movement

In the last 24 hours anti-equality campaigners have been setting up fake Yes to equality Facebook pages and then posting links around to large groups like the 26,000 strong anti water charges group. The intention being to trick people into voting No by trying to give credence to the fevered imaginations of homophobes.

On Friday Ireland goes to the polls for a referendum to introduce Marriage equality, when it is passed Ireland will be the first country to introduce Marriage equality by popular vote. In the final days of campaigning the reactionary anti-equality crowd are becoming increasingly open about their homophobia as they become increasingly desperate in the face of defeat.

Marriage as an institution has no great appeal for anarchists. Its primary role in capitalist society is to regulate property ‘rights’ and to promote social norms. But we also know that in our current society marriage has a social standing to which many people aspire. To tell a significant section of the population that they should be denied access to marriage is to ask them to accept a second­class position vis a vis their straight family members, workmates and friends.

“Marriage equality” represents a victory for conservatives within the LGBT movement in nrrowing and limiting the horizons of ur politics, and for conservative and homophobic social forces in diffusing and recuperating the potential for radical transformative change opened up by the gay liberation movement.

Fionnghuala is calling for a Yes vote but she also argues from an anarchist feminist perspective against the institution of marriage. It is a bourgeois, patriarchal tool which has been used to trap women, our sexualities, as well as to force reproduction and to force a woman to enter into reproductive labour.

While sharing some of my fellow anarchists criticisms' of marriage as a patriachal institution I feel unable to tolerate the existence of laws which blatantly discriminate against queer people.

Of course everyone should have unconditional access to housing food migration etc but until we reach full libertarian communism people have to make complex choices which may include wage slavery or marriage.

We never criticise the personal choices of straight comrades who have chosen to marry often for reasons involving visas, recognition of parenthood or tax.

The fights like marriage equality, which, on it's surface, seems really heteronormative, have the benefit of creating a halo effect and changing a homo/bi/transphobic culture. It makes queer people visible, it brings to light unequal treatment and starts a societal conversation that can and should be taken advantage off.

This year it feels as if there has been a revamping of homophobia in the north which has had, unsurprisingly, significant support from the church and those in political and therefore institutional power.

We have witnessed the DUP quash the third attempt to legalise queer marriage, bigoted ‘Christian’ bakers refusing to follow through with a service they advertised because it went against their “deeply held beliefs” (not to mention all the other services they provide that do go against their beliefs). This was followed by the the DUP attempting to bring in a 'Conscience Clause' to legalize and institutionalize homophobia; to make it legal to refuse service to someone because of their sexuality. The above examples are only a few of the homophobic incidents that have taken place recently.

The resistance and the fightback from these incidents must be queer-led and supported by our straight allies. Moreover, it should be noted that incidents like the above push us into a defensive stance; as opposed to an offensive one.

A few days ago the catholic bishops yet again dared to lecture people in Ireland with their statement against marriage equality. This morning Díobháil, a new Galway feminist group, has used Galway cathedral to speak out for and help the women trapped in unwanted pregnancies because of the bishops' role in another referendum, the 1983 anti choice referendum. 

In the years since 1983 it emerged that the same bishops had conspired to hide priests who had raped children, not just on one or two but on many occasions. Despite that this same group of supposedly celibate men still continue to bother us with lectures opposing sexual freedom, bodily autonomy and even same sex relationships. The same bishops still have de facto control over most of our schools and many of our hospitals and community centres.