If you ever needed proof that almost every TD from every party in the Dáil (with the exception of Aontú and the Independents) could actually be members of the same party then the latest report from the Joint Committee on Gender Equality provides it in spades.
The report recommends that Article 40.1 and Article 41 be amended to basically remove the definition of, and protection for, the traditional Family (as capitalised in Bunreacht na hÉireann but not in the proposed amendments) as the Committee believes that the State must act on the feeling of the Citizens’ Assembly that the current definition is “narrow, outdated and exclusionary.”
Indeed, you would only need a passing acquaintance with the views of the majority of the Committee members, of all formal party or other affiliation, to make a good stab at where they are likely to come down on any of the cultural issues dear to the heart of the liberal establishment.
The same applies to the vast majority of those who appeared before both the Citizens’ Assembly and the Committee during their respective hearings on this issue. It is a list of left liberal academics and NGO apparatchiks, without putting too fine a point on it.
And if you wish to get a quick sense of where they are all coming from then focus on the word State. Not only are the most vocal members of the Committee – judging by the contributions to their proceedings – members of statist left liberal parties such as Labour, Sinn Féin and People Before Profit, but all of the NGOs are almost totally state funded and their very raison d’etre is to expand the power of the State into as many aspects of life as possible. The Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil representatives just go along with all.
That is apparent from the thrust of the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly which the Committee is recommending be given effect to in a constitutional referendum to be held in 2023.
Recommendations 1 to 3 of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality
Article 40.1 of the Constitution as it currently stands simply states that “All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law. This shall not be held to mean that the State shall not in its enactments have due regard to differences of capacity, physical and moral, and of social functions.”
All pretty standard guarantees within the context of any democratic state of the protection of basic human rights. Or, at least it was because Article 40 has been amended so that it now includes a spurious positive responsibility on the part of the State to provide for abortion. Not content with that, the ideologues have set their sights on Article 40.1 so that it will also reflect the desire that their political views are enshrined within the basic law of the State.
They take exception to the term “human persons” and feel that this needs to be replaced with some wording that refers explicitly to “gender equality.” Well, given that the word gender no longer has an agreed definition – whereas the term human person certainly does, unless of course that person remains yet unborn – what exactly is their point?
Indeed, the reductio ad absurdum of this was indicated in a discussion at the Citizens’ Assembly which noted, inter alia, that “There are different kinds of minorities, who already suffer from the inequalities of gender, multiplied by other inequalities.” So, ought the Constitution then reel off a list of all the growing list of genders? Supplemented with cross references to colour, body shape, religion, ethnicity, social class?
It is a mark of the historical and cultural ignorance that lies at the foundation of all this nonsense that none of them seem to be aware that the last people to be obsessed with categorising people in this fashion like insects were the Nazis.
And lest one imagine that I am exaggerating any of this, below is one of the suggested new wordings for 40.1 that emerged from the Athenian Agora of intellectual ferment that is the Citizens’ Assembly:
“All persons shall be held equal before the law without discrimination on any ground such as gender, race, colour, national, ethnic or social origin, association with a national minority, sexual orientation, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, property, birth, disability, age, or other status.”
Another of the items on their wish list is also smuggled in where it was suggested by Caroline Fennell of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission that the word “citizens” be excised, and replaced with the term “all persons.” (You will note of course that the word “persons” is acceptable in that context but not as currently embodied in Article 40.1)
Why is that important? Well, for the reason as we have pointed out previously in relation to similar changes to the use of language by the left liberals when it comes to “rights,” that they want to abolish the distinction between a citizen with established rights, and any random individual who might happen to currently reside within the state for whatever reason and for however long.
No functional state extends rights on that basis. A tourist in Spain has the right to be protected against the denial of accepted human rights including bodily integrity, arbitrary arrest and so on. But they don’t have a right to vote or claim social welfare should there happen to be an election during their two weeks in Santa Ponsa or if they run out of holiday money. But of course, we all know the sort of “tourists” who are dear to the hearts of the Irish NGOs and their political sock puppets.
All that aside, let us also focus on what can only be described as the cynicism that lies at the heart of this latest push to embody left liberalism as the governing ideology of the Irish state. Not only is there no “demand” outside of their own circles for any of the constitutional changes which they want, but they also know that people might take the hump if they realise what their real objective is.
Thus, both Fennell of the IHREC and the National Womens Council of Ireland stressed that they to be “careful about how it would be viewed by citizens.” (p19) Fennell stated on March 10 that “while there may seem to be a case for removing much of the language on family altogether, in terms of an actual effective referendum that would pose challenges. The easier route would be to go along the lines of the ECHR and international definitions.”
For the NWCI, they advised that how they went about achieving their objective of removing the definition and the place of the family, as traditionally understood, had to be looked at from a “political perspective.”
In other words, as with all the other parts of their agenda, the “citizens” – soon to become part of the amorphous band of “persons” who happen to have some actual connection to Ireland or maybe just crashing here for a while until they move on to a better mark – need to be led gently into stuff that can be sold to them on the basis that it is just another nice thing to do. Tick the right box on the ballot paper Citizen Person and taste the progressive diversity of it all.