Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Senator Mullen said that his concerns around the Bill arise from its intention to render certain crimes more serious than others based on individual “protected characteristics people have” and the Bill’s recognition of “any form of gender expression”.
“I’m concerned because of the drift of it,” he said. “If people have committed crimes motivated by hatred against people on grounds of certain protected characteristics that those people have, then it turns it into a more serious kind of crime. It suggests that you can have two different categories of victims for the same crime and that’s not a great idea where we’re all supposed to be equal before the law.
“But the real problem is that continuing with this very controversial definition of gender, which doesn’t confine itself to male or female but instead transgender or any form of gender expression including a gender that’s neither male nor female, what you have is radical gender politics coming in for the first time into our statute law.”
The new definition of gender introduced in the Bill comes from “a very ideological place” according to Senator Mullen and his fear is that there will be a concerted push by future governments and specific NGOs to replace the traditional understanding of gender with this adapted one.
“My concern is by introducing this new definition of gender that it would be the Government’s intention and NGOs who are very well-connected politically, to push to have that new definition of gender, which is coming from a very ideological place, to replace the time-honoured definition of gender in other areas of our law in the future,” he said. “Even if it’s just in connection with hate crimes, it sets a bad precedent for the future.”