The Government has decided to call the Bill to amend the Constitution and permit same-sex marriage,” The Thirty-Fourth Amendment of the Constitution (Marriage Equality) Bill 2015″. Giving it such a completely loaded name, entirely favourable to the Yes side has been called into question by legal academic, Dr Seán Ó Conaill.
Dr Ó Conaill believes calling it this is constitutionally doubtful as it immediately biases voters in favour of it.
In an article for the legal blog constitutionproject.ie [1], Ó Conail rightly points out: “Those on the No side have argued that calling the referendum ‘The Marriage Equality Referendum’ contains an implied value judgement about the nature of equality and suggests that those voting No are opposed to equality. Many on the No side have argued that they are not opposed to equality in any sense but rather see the issue as one which they oppose on first principles.”
That is quite correct. Those of us who will be voting no in May are not voting no to equality. Instead we’re voting to ensure that different situations are treated differently, in this case that the Constitution continues to recognise via Article 41 (entitled ‘The Family’) that the union of a man and a woman is different from that of two people of the same sex, most importantly vis a vis children.
O’Conail believes the safest thing would be for the Government to simply call the referendum, ‘the marriage referendum’. This is completely neutral.
If it doesn’t do this, might there be yet another legal challenge against a referendum outcome on the grounds that yet another Government has sought to unfairly influence voters?