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marriage in 2001, I point to how we can see some evidence of a shift away from
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served to police and silence much public discussion about sexuality. While
prudery about sexual issues still remains, my paper points to the emergence of
prudent-yet-tolerant sharing of stories about the social exclusion of same-sex
couples. In spite of recent setbacks for a legal case seeking the recognition of
a foreign same-sex marriage in Ireland, we may point to a growing political and
legal consciousness for the extension of rights for lesbian and gay couples but
it is still unclear as to what model will be adopted in the Irish context. While
in the Irish case, there is only intermittent media interest in ‘gay marriage’,
we can locate this struggle within the framework of the sociology of intimate
citizenship. Not only do claims for same-sex marriage illustrate pointed
inequalities experienced by lesbians and gay men, the stories also problematize
the naturalness of heterosexuality. The Irish case may, of course, be explored
within the context of a global challenge to gender identity where the imagined
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