Online TV AnLár asked us to answer 5 questions, to illustrate the theme of this year’s Pride: “We are family too.”
So we had a go at it.
[spoilergroup][spoiler intro="What does it take to be 'family'?"]

White knot! Why not?

Friends are people you would risk your life for.
Lovers are people you would give your life for.
Family are people who give you life.

But life is not limited to a biological function.

For instance adopted children give their parents a life as parents, and the adoptive parents give them real parents.

Another instance is that step-parents are not perceived as real parents unless they give the children and the parent of the child, “life”; until they make them who they are rather than just “contribute”.

Family is what turns a child into our child into an individual.

Even without a biological link, we are family too…
… unless you consider inter-breeding the norm![/spoiler]
[spoiler intro="Is the gay community serious about family rights, is there a real grass root interest, or is it just a political game?"]
Who can ask this question with a straight face?

Family rights are all about the children.

The Civil Partnership bill would work for any couple (same-gender, or mix-gender) if they do not have kids, and do not plan on having any.

We are serious about ensuring that our children, the children raised by gay couples, the children that we love and who love us, the children who rely on us and trust us, that our children avail of the constitutional protection for marital families.

They are not second class citizens.
People who are against same-gender marriage are against children.[/spoiler]
[spoiler intro="If the government wanted to allow gay couples to marry, is there a risk it could be challenged? On what grounds?"]
None. No serious threat.

Actually, it would be challenged… but it would not stand.

If the government was not so dependent on a certain section of the religious class, a section which has proven unable and unwilling to uphold children’s best interest, they would not pretend that an expensive and divisive Referendum is “needed”. They need people to believe it is needed. But it is not.

Not until an hypothetical challenge is lost. And even then, the challenge would be the platform fora referendum to be winnable as the opinion will have heard the arguments before having to argue about it themselves. And people are more intelligent than the government give them credit for.

As for the grounds, none of them is serious:

• Is marriage by same-gender couples a threat to the institution of civil marriage?
  Of course not. We are talking about the constitutional marriage, the one which is the foundation of the family, the one that supports the education of children, the where “family” is defined as a household (Teaghlach) and not as a blood relation.
• Is anyone’s constitutional right breached by same-gender marriage?
  No ones. You cannot breach someone’s rights by giving someone else’s a right that does not impact the former. It is not like we force them to get married with someone outside of their own gender…
• Is a gay couple a threat to the children? Think about the children!
  We are thinking about the children; about the ones we raise; about the ones the Irish Adoption Agency is willing to allow us to adopt, because they trust we can be just as good parents as any.
  The only people who will make their life harder are the people, the bullies, who make this silly argument (and threat) in the first place.
  We will not deny our children a family on the ground that bullies tell us our kids will be bullied.

[/spoiler]
[spoiler intro="Is the institution of civil marriage threatened by gay parents and their children and their lifestyle?"]
I think we just answered that

At present, the only thing threatened is our children’s welfare: the government actively stops our children from receiving the constitutional protection they deserve: a marital family.[/spoiler]
[spoiler intro="What is the connection between sexuality and the spiritual value of marriage?"]
People are free to practice their own religion, or whatever spiritual values they want to practice.

But religion is a personal relationship one has with their spirituality, or their God, or their gods, or whatever Supreme Being they turn to.

Religion cannot be allowed to make the Law, and to bully children.

Religious people do not mind gay couples adopting children, or raising their own, in a marital household, in a marital family. The people who mind are not religious people, they are religious extremists, integrists, who want to force their convictions on others.[/spoiler]
[/spoilergroup]
We promote the right to choose our own lives.
They want to bully us in living their own choice.