Interesting story in the Boston Globe, Same-Sex Couple’s Lawsuit a Test of Tolerance in Ireland; Tax Case Seeks Marital Recognition:

In a country that has had its share of revolutionaries, Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan hardly look the part

They are smartly dressed, well-coiffed, middle-aged members of Ireland’s burgeoning middle class. But in trying to get the government to recognize their 2003 marriage in Canada, they are challenging the very notion that Ireland has become a less socially conservative, more tolerant corner of Europe.

Their legal challenge is essentially a tax case: They have asked to be taxed like any other married couple, rather than as individuals. But the societal ramifications go well beyond that. The two are effectively demanding that same-sex marriages, and by extension the more than 77,000 same-sex and heterosexual couples in Ireland living together outside marriage, be afforded, as they put it, ”a partnership status of full equivalence with marriage."

(Hat Tip:  Howard Bashman.)