Editing Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform

{{Short description|Irish movement aimed at decriminalising homosexuality}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

The '''Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform''' was an organisation set up to campaign for the decriminalisation of [[homosexuality]] in the [[Republic of Ireland]] and [[Northern Ireland]] in the 1970s.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Duggan |first=Marian |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sRE3DAAAQBAJ |title=Queering Conflict: Examining Lesbian and Gay Experiences of Homophobia in Northern Ireland |date=2016-05-23 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-07252-2 |pages=50–51 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Nagle |first=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ttijCwAAQBAJ |title=Social Movements in Violently Divided Societies: Constructing Conflict and Peacebuilding |date=2016-02-26 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-50800-7 |pages=145 |language=en}}</ref> Its most prominent leader was [[David Norris (politician)|David Norris]], an English studies lecturer in [[Trinity College Dublin]], [[James Joyce|Joycean]] scholar and from the 1980s to the present a member of [[Seanad Éireann]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Anagnostou |first=Dia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gMWdBQAAQBAJ |title=Rights and Courts in Pursuit of Social Change: Legal Mobilisation in the Multi-Level European System |date=2014-12-01 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-78225-186-6 |pages=187 |language=en}}</ref>

==History==
While serving as a lecturer at Trinity College, Norris and a group of other students informally established the Sexual Liberation Movement in 1974. It was short-lived, but two of the splinter organizations formed on campus were the Dublin University Gay Society, the first long-term LGBT rights organization in Ireland, and a group of law students known as the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform.

Its first legal advisor was [[Mary McAleese]], Reid Professor of Law at [[Trinity College Dublin]], future [[President of Ireland]]; she served as legal advisor from 1975 to 1979, when she left her professorial position to join [[RTÉ]]. She was succeeded in that role in the 1980s by [[Mary Robinson]], a former Reid Professor of Law and then-Trinity College Senator, who later became the first female [[President of Ireland]].

Norris took a case to the [[High Court (Ireland)|Irish High Court]] in 1980 seeking a declaration that the laws of 1861 and 1885 which criminalised homosexual conduct were not in force since the enactment of the [[Constitution of Ireland]].  Article 50 of the Constitution provides that laws enacted before the Constitution that are inconsistent with it would no longer be in force.  The case ([[Norris v. Attorney General]]) was lost on legal grounds and the decision was upheld on appeal to the [[Supreme Court of Ireland]] which referred in its judgment to Christian moral teaching and the needs of society.

Norris then took a case in 1983 to the [[European Court of Human Rights]] claiming that the Irish laws breached the state's obligations under Article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, regarding respect for private life ([[Norris v. Ireland]]). In a 1988 ruling, the court found that the Irish laws were in breach of the convention and directed the state to pay costs to Norris.

No reform action was taken by the then government of [[Taoiseach]] [[Charles Haughey]].  When [[Albert Reynolds]] succeeded as Taoiseach in 1992, he declared that it was low on his list of priorities.  However, in his subsequent coalition [[Fianna Fáil]]/[[Labour Party (Ireland)|Labour Party]] government, as a result of pressure from the Labour Party the laws were reformed by the [[Minister for Justice (Ireland)|Minister for Justice]], [[Máire Geoghegan-Quinn]] in 1993. She was noted for insisting that an equal age of consent be provided for homosexuals and [[heterosexuality|heterosexuals]] alike.

==See also==
{{Portal|LGBTQ}}
*[[LGBT rights in the Republic of Ireland]]
*[[Recognition of same-sex unions in the Republic of Ireland]]
*[[List of LGBT rights organizations]]
*[[Norris v. Attorney General]]
*[[Norris v. Ireland]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.worldlii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/1988/22.html Norris v. Ireland 1988]
{{LGBT in Ireland}}

[[Category:LGBTQ rights in the Republic of Ireland]]
[[Category:LGBTQ history in Ireland]]
[[Category:LGBTQ history in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:LGBTQ political advocacy groups in the Republic of Ireland]]
[[Category:Law reform in the Republic of Ireland]]
[[Category:Law reform in the United Kingdom]]