Civil partnership 'nothing to do with church', says gay rights group
The Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN) has said that there is a now democratic consensus for civil partnership in this country.
The group was responding to comments from Cardinal Sean Brady, who has spoken out against the legislation that will give statutory partnership rights to homosexual couples.
Speaking at St John's Cathedral in Limerick yesterday evening, the Primate of All Ireland Cardinal Sean Brady said the Government's civil partnership legislation would hugely change people's concept of the family.
The bill, which was published in June, will give long-term gay couples many of the statutory rights afforded to married couples.
Cardinal Brady said that marriage between a man and a woman will always remain the ideal environment to raise children, and that any Government which undermines that could hardly be said to be promoting the common good.
In response, GLEN said that there is a democratic consensus for civil partnership here, and while churches are entitled to marry who they wish, civil marriage and civil partnership are to do with the State.
