A claim that same-sex marriage is a human right, made by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), has been rejected by a Senior Counsel.
In a policy statement released ahead of the forthcoming same-sex marriage referendum, the IHREC stated it “believes that the opening out of civil marriage to two persons without distinction as to their sex is a matter of equality and human rights”.
However, repsonding in The Irish Catholic newspaper, barrister Patrick Treacy, and theologians Prof. Eamonn Conway and Dr Rik Van Nieuwenhove stressed that “there is no basis for the contention that same-sex marriage is a human right” and accused the IRHEC of ignoring a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling on the issue.
That ruling, in the case of Hamalainen v. Finland, the ECHR stated that the European Convention on Human Rights cannot be interpreted “as imposing an obligation on contracting states to grant same-sex couples access to marriage”. The three men further pointed out that fewer than ten percent of countries worldwide recognise the legality of same-sex marriage.
Dr Van Nieuwenhove described the IRHEC’s omission of a reference to the case as “beyond comprehension” and said it was “misleading if not downright deception [and] raises questions about their neutrality in this debate”.
