Ireland rejects lesbian marriage

Ireland rejects lesbian marriage.
Ireland's High Court has rejected a lesbian couple's attempt to have their marriage legally recognised.

Katharine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan were married in British Columbia, Canada, after that province legalised same-sex marriage, and were seeking recognition in Ireland where they now live. They argued that failure to recognise their marriage breached their rights under the Irish constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. The couple took legal action in 2004 after Irish Revenue Commissioners refused to allow them the same tax allowances as mixed-sex couples in Ireland.

"The right to marry, For three years we have been a married couple," said Dr Zappone after the court's ruling. "We took the case because we believed and we requested that the human right to marry is simply extended to us."

But the High Court in Dublin ruled that the court was being asked to redefine marriage to mean something which it had never done to date. "I do not think that it is a right which exists for same sex couples either under the Irish constitution or under the European Convention," said Justice Elizabeth Dunne in a 138-page ruling. Justice Dunne did however state that the rights of cohabitating couples, whether same- or mixed-sex, were being reviewed in Ireland.

Homosexuality was illegal in the Republic of Ireland until 1993.

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Ireland rejects lesbian marriage