Dear Editor, In relation to Richard Deane’s letter (IC 30/04/2015), as a practising Catholic he should know that God loves us all equally and we should love one another as he told us to. Marriage is about a man and a woman. We are asked to change Article 41 which is called ‘The Family’. Yours…

Dear Editor, Dr Martin Mansergh’s excellent article (IC 30/04/2015) highlighted the importance of the people’s right to be consulted on all matters requiring constitutional change. Irish citizens are indeed fortunate to have a Constitution that requires such consultation. This point is reinforced if we reflect on the recent French experience. In France, a substantial grassroots…

Dear Editor, So far in this marriage referendum we have been told that it is about equality and redefining marriage. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that it is about abolishing marriage as we know it and leaving civil partnership as the only available option. Currently, in Irish law a marriage does not…

Dear Editor, On March 24 all UCD students (over 20,000) opened their accounts to an email sent from the UCD Students Union with an invite to attend a celebratory pro-same-sex marriage wedding party. On top of this, there is nowhere on campus you can go without being confronted by ‘vote yes’ propaganda, which the Students…

Dear Editor, I find it very difficult to understand how Cathal O’Sullivan (Letters IC 30/04/2015) believes the complementarity argument is overstated. Gender quotas in almost every walk of life – politics, business, State boards – are universally now regarded as a laudable good. Is parenting the only area where the role of a man and a…

Dear Editor, I cannot find anything in the Bible in its statements on marriage which would support or give religious freedom to vote for same-sex marriage. Right through it all, it is taken for granted or as evident that marriage is between a man and a woman. In the light of this, it will surprise…

Dear Editor, When the Government says this referendum is about civil marriage and has nothing to do with religious marriage, what is really being said is: We don’t care about centuries of tradition or philosophical or theological wisdom, and we don’t care about what God has to say about human affairs, as made known through his…

Dear Editor, It was heartening to learn of the intervention of Archbishop Eamon Martin, as well as Bishop Philip Boyce, Bishop Michael Smith, Bishop Denis Nulty and Bishop John Buckley, in the debate on the forthcoming referendum (IC 07/05/2015). Dare we hope that at this the eleventh hour many other bishops, as well as priests,…

Dear Editor, I am reluctantly voting no in the upcoming same-sex marriage referendum as I have concerns regarding the potential consequences if passed, but I do support equality rights for gay and lesbian couples. Prior to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1993, there was little tolerance for the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender…

Dear Editor, A memory of 1940, at the age of nine, in my hometown of Westport; going up James Street, someone shouted “the Germans have landed in Achill; they will be here tomorrow”. I felt stunned: the future in ruins, houses empty, a home no longer a home! Now in 2015 the same-sex marriage referendum…