I sometimes wonder at the amount of time I have spent on debates in this House on issues that are connected with sexuality. We have had a long debate, which I recall went on until about 4 a.m., on the issue of a limited liberalisation of the laws governing the sale of contraceptives. I am not trying to get involved at all in a political argument with the Minister about this specific issue, but we have been talking a long time about the decriminalisation of homosexual acts involving men.
There are a few things that should be said about human sexuality. If I can quote a Member of the other House whom I would not normally be expected to be quoting, Deputy Brendan McGahon in an unforgettable phrase he said about sex that "if God invented anything nicer he kept it for himself". One of the things that should be said about human sexuality is that it is actually very nice, very good, very self-affirming and very life-affirming. It is a whole lot of very good things. It is not something dangerous to be allowed within carefully defined constraints for fear we would all go berserk if we were not carefully kept on a short leash.
Many of those, of course, who would control our lives have long ago realised that sexuality is a very positive thing. If you want to become slightly poetical about sexuality, one of the fears I always suspected that many of our spiritual leaders have is that an act of healthy sexuality led to a very close integration between the physical and the spiritual in terms of the complex of experiences that go with happy sexuality. They feared, in my view, a loss of control by them over people who were that much at one with themselves in terms of their sexuality and, indeed, of their spirituality. There is no contradiction. It is one of the great, sad things about many of the great religions of the world that apparently they have always found it necessary to keep themselves a long distance from any sort of act of sexuality. I find that quite extraordinary and quite wrong.
Sex — in a phrase that nearly cost me my seat in the Seanad on one occasion — is actually good fun. We should not spend years and endless ages analysing it as if it was something terrible and dangerous that we are just about allowed to do once we are old enough not to be able to do it any more. Sexuality is, in fact, about people escaping into freedom and into joy and ever more intimate relationships between themselves. In our society we have been burdened by moralists who seem to believe that they have a particular obligation to go through the most intricate gynaecological analysis of what constitutes various forms of morally improper behaviour. Catholic manuals on moral theology are particularly intriguing in this regard, not in terms of the principles of proper sexual morality, which in my view are quite simply atriculated in terms of equality of relationships of a non-exploitative nature between consenting individuals. That is a good definition of a positive, vigorous and very demanding sexual morality — that nobody should be involved in a sexual relationship with anybody which is not based on the assumption of equality, which is not based on free consent and which does not involve any physical or, indeed, psychological exploitation of the other person.
I believe that of itself describes an extraordinarily demanding and very principled sexual morality. It does not necessitate gynaecological analysis of degrees of penetration or indeed the extraordinarily ridiculous one about the Catholic moralist in Maynooth in the present day who got himself into the contorted position of talking about somebody using a condom during ejaculation but leaving a pinprick in it so as not to prevent the possibility of conception. I defy ordinary practical people to believe that that is actually serious philosophically, spiritually based moral theology, but we have serious moralists making speeches like that or making statements like that on the national airways. I do not think we should take people like that seriously. As adult human beings we should form our own values, our own views, about what is proper and what is wrong in the whole area of human sexuality and about the standards of behaviour.
I think that our moralists were always aware of the insecurity of the ground they trod on because of the speed with which they have always rushed in to demand the support of the State in this area and not just on the question of homosexuality. You must remember that adultery has been illegal in many countries at many stages of their history. Usually, of course, it is the woman who is penalised where the adultery has occurred. It is rarely that there are very servere penalties against men for adultery. The tradition of the fallen woman is long established in most western societies. I have never heard of an equivalent expression for a fallen man — apparently they never existed.
The interaction between attempts by society to regulate sexuality and various operations of control of people would be worthy of development as well, but not tonight because of time. Oral sex was and perhaps still is illegal in some states of the United States. I am always intrigued as to how they enforce this kind of legislation, but it was actually illegal, and other various forms of non-traditional sexual expression, to use that phrase. I am not too sure that anybody can make a distinction between what is natural and what is unnatural in the area of human sexuality. As far as I know, since the idea was invented, people have been doing it in a variety of ways and a variety of situations which defy any categorisation of natural and unnatural. Therefore, I am not prepared to accept that sort of language.
Then, of course, we have the whole area of homosexual acts between men. I heard Senator Norris describe the history of that particular matter. I am fascinated by the fact that no similar legislation apparently was ever introduced about women. But I do know that one of the reasons was that women were so severely restricted and so severely tied down by a whole host of other legislation that perhaps the necessity for legislation like this was never perceived to be a reality. I know that at one stage — and perhaps it still exists — the official definition of a brothel was any house in which more than two women who are not married live together. That was as good an expression of the perception of female sexuality, that if they were living on their own without a man they must be up to something.
It all goes back to perceptions of morality, perceptions of sexuality and, indeed, in many cases, perceptions of women. I would address this as much to myself as to other Members of this House. One of the great contributions that Senator Norris has made to Irish politics and to Irish life is that his deliberate, active campaign has forced us all to confront the reality of homosexuality and to confront the reality of all the prejudices and all the fears that we have. Many people say that the deepest fears that most men have are not about homosexuality but about the possibility that they are homosexual themselves. I do not know about that, but what is quite true is that it is only when one is presented with situations one realises the depths of one's own prejudices and one's own resistence.
I remember the first time I saw two gay men kissing in a very non-sexual fashion to say good night, in the way that lots of men would happily kiss lots of women to say good night to them, in a reasonably expressive but not too passionate a fashion. I remember having, metaphorically, to take a step backwards when it happened — I do believe Senator Norris was one of the people in question — but it did come as a considerable shock to me, I must say. Of course, the truth is that in many other cultures, in many other societies, two men kissing would be a symbol of nothing other than the normal expression of affection, any more than two men holding hands would be regarded as anything more than a normal part of normal activity. But we have created a culture where things that are taken as perfectly normal and having nothing to do with sexuality are seen in this country and in our kind of slightly cold blooded western society as being a sort of manifestation of something else.
We really have to get down and confront all those prejudices; and I think the more one confronts all those prejudices the more one realises that the legislation about homosexual activity ought to be identical with the legislation about other forms of activity. It has to do — and this is why I am quite happy with the age of consent of around 17 — with allowing our young people the freedom and space to come to terms with their own sexuality without external pressures on them, without any sort of forcible development, where they are forced to believe that it is necessary to be sexually active at a young age in order to prove some sort of independence or freedom. Therefore I think our legislative process ought to be about enabling people to develop sexually in a society which does not have either an unhealthy obsession with denying sex or, indeed, an unhealthy obsession with sex, but allowing people to grow up in a society of freedom and tolerance. That means allowing people to discover their own sexuality without, may I say, one particular area — the increasing commercialisation of sexuality — which is neither healthy nor good for anybody because it is a major force which deprives people of the space and freedom to discover their own sexuality, without external pressure, at their own pace and in their own time. I think, therefore, that the report of the Law Reform Commission, as I understand it, is a proper basis for legislation and I hope that the Minister will see fit to implement it as it is there and without any concessions to some of the fears in our society.
There are a few more comments I wish to make. One is that it would be wrong to interpret the Supreme Court's decision on Senator Norris' case as being an implication that there is anything in the Constitution which would make legislation to legalise homosexual acts unconstitutional. What the Supreme Court said was that there was nothing in the Constitution which said that legislation of itself was inherently unconstitutional, which is not to say that amending legislation to remove this would have any problems with the Constitution. There is no guaranteed right in the Constitution, according to the Supreme Court, to have this legislation quashed. There is no suggestion that the Constitution would be a problem to the change in the legislation. Clearly, that was not the intention of their lordships at the time and I think that should be put on the record. I do think, however, that as well as confronting our own fears we will have to confront society. That is why it is necessary to have anti-discrimination legislation in regard to various groups in our society who have been victims of prejudice.
The largest group, perhaps, were women — and we have begun to deal with legislation to prevent discrimination against women — but there are other minorities in our society, like the gay community and indeed the travelling community, who would benefit enormously from anti-discrimination legislation. It might not be legislation that could be enforced in a very specific way, but again it would be a statement of our intent and it would be a deterrent to some of the more blatant, vigorous and offensive forms of prejudice against various minority groups.
In regard, to displays of prejudice, I had the unfortunate experience of hearing a Garda superintendent say at a meeting I attended that most offences against children were carried out by homosexuals, which was a regrettable lack of perception on his part, and, may I say, a departure from the fairly tolerant position of our Garda, which, incidentally, has always been a good deal less prejudiced than that of their counterparts North of the Border. The RUC had an unfortunate record of being quite hostile to people and of using legislation similar to our own in a quite unfair way against homosexuals. I am very glad to say that our Garda have shown no such inclination. I think there was a slight problem after a recent spectacular murder case in which members of the gay community were given an excessively rough time; but I think by and large the Garda decided years ago that this legislation does not really apply in most cases.
I heard what Senator Lydon had to say and I would not agree with one word of it. I am not sure that we are right in this House to force people like Senator Lydon to vote one way or the other on the basis of a party whip. On an issue like this as in other issues — I am not even sure that that would necessarily mean that the reforms that I want would go through — I am not sure that we should force people who have views like Senator Lydon to vote in a particular direction because the party whip says so. I think there is room on issues like this for people to have the freedom to vote as they choose to vote. I believe the majority of the Members of both Houses of the Oireachtas will support reforming legislation of this kind without a party whip, which may cause people considerable difficulties with their own consciences. There is not a word of what he said that I would agree with, but I believe that if I am to subscribe to a pluralist vision of Ireland the pluralism includes those people who dissent from me on the right as well as those who dissent from me on the left. Therefore, I would suggest to the Government party, and to all the parties, that perhaps this is an appropriate issue on which, as the Leader of Fine Gael has said already, we should think about a free vote, where people are not bound by party whips but are free to express what they believe to be right or to be wrong on a particular issue.
