L-R: Fintan Warfield, Emma Murphy, Gerry Adams TD and Pádraig Mac Lochlainn TD speaking at the launch of Sinn Féin’s LGBT rights document earlier today.
Sinn Féin officially launched their policy document on LGBT rights across the island of Ireland today, with party leader Gerry Adams noting that LGBT rights were at the heart of the political party’s republican values.
Party president Gerry Adams TD, Pádraig Mac Lochlainn TD, Cllr. Emma Murphy, and Mayor of South Dublin, Fintan Warfield, all spoke at the launch event for the document, Equality, Diversity, Solidarity – Fighting with Pride for LGBT Rights in Ireland, in Dublin this morning. Mr Adams spoke in both Irish and English about the progress made in terms of LGBT rights over the years in Ireland, but said that there were several challenges that still needed to be met.
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AN SIONNACH FIONN 
I’m happy to see this issue under discussion. Honestly reading the article you linked to felt like encountering proposals for disability rights and equal access from the American 1960’s. Is it really still a point of contention that lgbt people and families get equal employment opportunities? But then, I was speaking to a friend of mine who lives in Ireland who has a profoundly disabled child, and that was also a bit like being in a time warp. From where I stand the main obsticle to change in both cases is the same, and it goes way beyond economic challenges and the lack of policies. It’s the attitude that certain kinds of people are less than full persons, and ought to be treated as such, and misplaced unfounded fear of others’ differences. I say this as a person with a disability who also has many lgbt friends. It seems that our prejudices and discrimination we face in any marginalized group is as interconnected as we are to one another, and yet sadly it’s too easy to buy into the myth of separateness that marginalization seeks to create among groups and within individuals. Hope lies I think in people in either the disability or lgbt communities realizing their worth as persons and refusing to settle for any recognition falling short of that, and open dialogue is one way to start shifting attitudes. Because equality is very hard to come by when it’s everyone involved who questions whether they are really equals. So yes if people are proud of who they are and know they are in fact equal then implimenting the policies that reflect that will be only a matter of money and time.
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