Fun with Fintan

Today, in The Irish Times, Fintan O'Toole claimed that he didn't respect opponents of same-sex marriage since they were all bigots with no serious arguments to make. Read the screed here.

I wrote to the Irish Times in reply. I wonder will they print my letter? Here it is, anyway.

Dear editor

Fintan O'Toole (Irish Times, 16/4/13) ridicules the idea that legalising gay marriage "will diminish all marriages", and brands all opponents of same-sex marriage bigots. Three cheers for liberal tolerance! He fails to see something so simple that many champions of same-sex marriage also miss it; that traditional marriage respects the obvious, and unique, complementarity between man and woman, a complementarity that is biological, psychological, spiritual, procreative, and cultural. Everybody, in practice, accepts this reality every single day, and it is plain to the youngest child-- but we are to pretend not to accept it, or its implications for marriage, on the grounds of political correctness.

Gay marriage will diminish all marriages because it makes marriage a mere social convention, not the awesome and ancient and independent reality that it is. Most likely, after marriage has been further redefined and devalued in decades to come, only marriages solemnized by orthodox religions will be taken seriously by anybody any more.

Mr. O'Toole believes all opponents of same-sex marriage are bigots. Presumably this includes pretty much every human being (many of them non-religious and anti-religious) who ever lived up until the last few decades, as well as the hundreds of thousands of people from across the social and political spectrum who recently demonstrated against the redefinition of marriage in France. Add to this the overwhelming majorities in Africa and Asia. That's quite a lot of bigots! Could it be that Mr. O'Toole's passionate intensity is unwarranted, and that liberal dogma has blinded him to reality?

Yours sincerely

Maolsheachlann O Ceallaigh
74 Sillogue Gardens
Ballymun
Dublin 11