Please sir, can I have some more… rights that is

There is a storm coming. I’m not referring to our thunderous march towards socialism and the inevitable political and fiscal turmoil that will bring. Nor am I speculating about further shocking revelations that will unearth the depths to which our social institutions are morally bankrupt. No. There’s a referendum a coming, and this one is relentless, dangerous and may blight Irish society for generations.

This referendum is not the endorsing of an international treaty that will sign away sovereignty and ensure the creation of jobs (not my words, lest we forget). It is not a referendum to introduce abortion, which let’s face it Ireland still hasn’t grown up enough to debate that one like adults – I am still reeling over being told by some femi-nazi from the UCD School of ‘I am woman, hear me roar’ that “women owned the word rape”.
No. It’s the inexorable inevitability of the Children’s Rights referendum.

Eight hundred years of British rule coupled with the equally vicious tyranny of the Roman Catholic Church has produced a society that empathises with every injustice inflicted upon the helpless and vulnerable. This is a positive, don’t get me wrong. However we do not do ‘identity politics’ well in this country, unless it involves a balaclava or a crucifix, and now we blindly want to bestow rights to a group that has no concept of those rights.

We are introducing this referendum because we feel guilty. It stems from the 1993 McGuinness Report into the Kikenny incest case. The 2005 Ferns Report is actually cited in the preamble and is championed as one of the main reasons we need this amendment.

Of course Irish society owes a debt to all those who have suffered from state culpability in the systemic abuse and horrors inflicted upon them since its foundation. Hiring more Social Workers, funding them appropriately, root and branch reform of our education system and prosecutions are all appropriate memorials and legacies for the suffering of child victims. The constitutional amendment is not.

So why am I so hung up about the rights proposed by the amendment? I admit it. I have trust issues. I don’t trust any government. I don’t trust our curtain-twitching neighbours, I don’t trust do-gooder ‘someone please think of the children’ groups. I don’t trust quazi-religious groups, and I certainly don’t trust the legal profession.

All of the above are the only ones who will benefit from this amendment. The child will simply become an object, a pawn. A child cannot represent him/herself in court – they have no concept of the legal system. Instead our courts will become a soap box where groups and the state will fight it out to decide whether a parent is abusing their child because the child is obese.

Will home-schooling be considered an abuse because the parent has decided not to teach their child that homosexuality is okay or that evolution is the devils work? Who is in a better position to decide for children. A parent or the state?

This referendum has the potential to decide by the gavel instead of a real referendum that same-sex couples are not capable of raising kids and that same-sex couples should have their children torn from their arms. This referendum could see the rise of Coír as a political force – it gives them the ultimate platform.

To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton our constitution is meant to be a document with a few big rules, not an encyclopedia of little rules. These little rules could leave us with a legacy of court judgements that could take years to repeal. Our children are not asking for more rights, they just want to grow up in a safe environment that promotes growth and personal development. Don’t we already afford these rights to our young?

This referendum is failing our young, not protecting them. It will only succeed in taking the limelight of the corrupt institutions and their reform. That is why it is receiving so much support from all corners. They have no changes to make themselves. The amendment does not require this. Children need more well funded supports not the gruel of a constitutional amendment.