The right to be loved

Dear Editor, When faced with a choice, I tend to ask “What would Jesus do today?” Sometimes, he was strict about the law in the Old Testament; at other times he offered alternatives to the laws. He instructs the healed leper to go to the priest as per the law as gracefully as he heals on the Sabbath.

It seems to me that the common attitude he took was always love: if there was a conflict between the law and love he always made the decision that was consistent with love. That is why I believe that the loving choice in this referendum is to support the amendment. It is not only to include gay people more fully in our society: it is to respect gay people by giving them the equal opportunity to express their love in marriage.

One of the things that has changed in marriage thankfully over the years has been a growing sense of equality between male and female partners. I feel that marriage has also offered my wife and I the opportunity of supporting each other through all of life’s joys and challenges at a deep level. When I become aware of the deep loneliness that exists in the gay community, I feel they should have this opportunity too.

Before I got married, an elderly lady gave me advice in a pub: “Trust each other,” she said. Of course, difficult times happen in any loving relationship: friends and family fall out, marriages fail and sometimes couples and partners make decisions that hurt others: we are all human.

But our sexuality does not make us better or worse people. My faith informs me that we are all have an equal responsibility to love and a right to be loved in marriage.

Yours etc.,

Stephen Winder-Baggot,

The Tenters,

Dublin 8.