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[ivysaur12]

WHAT AND WHY?

Ireland will be the first country to use a national referendum to extend marriage rights to gay couples.

The signs are that voters will take the opportunity to move towards a more open and pluralistic society.

Many question the wisdom of putting the rights of a minority up to a vote of a majority.

Furthermore, there is some dispute about whether a referendum is legally necessary; after all, other countries have simply changed the law.

But Ireland has quite an extensive written constitution and it can be amended only by process of national referendum.

The constitution does not define marriage as being between a man and a woman, but there is uncertainty over whether any legislation extending marriage rights could be open to legal challenge in the Supreme Court.

It is likely that a cautious government opted for direct engagement with the electorate by referendum rather than running the gauntlet of producing legislation on marriage equality, which could have been struck down by the courts and then would have needed to be put to a referendum in any case.

BUT WHAT DO THE POLLS SAY?

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/poli...ded-for-no-side-to-carry-referendum-1.2214674 (with video on why it's most likely this referendum will pass)

Seismic shift needed for No side to carry referendum

Yes retains commanding lead with under one week to go before people cast vote

The Yes side retains a commanding lead in the referendum campaign on same-sex marriage, according to the latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll, but the gap has narrowed since the last poll in March.

When undecided voters are excluded, the poll indicates that 70 per cent of voters intend to vote Yes (down four points since March) and 30 per cent say they will vote No (up four points).

The poll was taken last Wednesday and Thursday, with a just a little over a week to go before the vote.

The Yes margin is comfortable and most of the indicators point to a firming up of the Yes vote as opposed to a falling apart. That said, recent referendums have shown no lead is unassailable.

‘This Government’s only commitment to marriage is to re-defining it to make it gender-neutral and then repeating loudly that it represents no change at all.’ Above, Eileen King, Keith Mills and Tom Finegan during the Mothers and Fathers Matter press conference in Dublin where they unveiled their new campaign posters and put questions to the Referendum Commission this week.

Colm Toibin: ‘We seek to embrace marriage and strengthen the idea of the family and our involvement in it. We seek to enhance the institution of marriage. We want to make the same vows as others do, for the same reasons.’

Asked how they intend to vote in the referendum to change the Constitution to allow same-sex marriage, 58 per cent said Yes (down six points); 25 per cent said No (up two points); and 17 per cent were undecided or said they would not vote (up five points).

It is the second Irish Times poll in succession to show a decline in support for the Yes side. There has been a small shift into the No camp and a more sizeable one into the “don’t know/won’t vote” category since the last poll.

BUT I THOUGHT IRELAND WAS LIKE SUPER CATHOLIC?

http://www.religionnews.com/2015/05/20/irelands-gay-marriage-referendum-sign-roman-catholic-decline/

On Friday (May 22), voters in this once deeply Roman Catholic country will decide whether the country’s constitution should be amended to allow for gay marriage. If the amendment passes, Ireland will become the first country to legalize same-sex civil marriage by popular vote.

Catholic faith has been faltering among the younger Irish for the last 40 years, undermined, in part, by a series of long-covered-up cases of sexual abuse involving priests and choirboys and altar boys.

In her book ”Goodbye to Catholic Ireland,” Mary Kenny wrote: “The scandals left the people with the feeling that the clerical way of life was in itself an error, and that Catholicism as a system has been seen to fail to practice the virtues it so ardently preached.”

Many Catholics wonder what right the Catholic Church has to oppose gay marriage when those charged with proclaiming and upholding Christian morality were abusing children.

Opinion polls suggest that 78 percent of voting-age Irish favor altering the constitution to allow gay couples to marry. Among them, a few Catholic priests have dared voice support for the amendment, saying they would vote “yes.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...sex-marriage-in-ireland/?wpisrc=nl_mix&wpmm=1

For the Rev. Pádraig Standún, a Catholic priest in western Ireland, voting “yes” is a matter of what’s right. To another Irish priest, the Rev. Iggy O’Donovan, it’s about creating an inclusive state.

To the Rev. Martin Dolan, Ireland’s upcoming referendum on same-sex marriage is deeply personal.

“I’m gay myself,” he announced to his Dublin congregation in January. It was a surprise ending to Dolan’s homily, in which he urged his congregation to vote “yes” in the referendum. But his parishioners took it in stride — they gave him a standing ovation, according to the Belfast Telegraph.

As the Friday referendum approaches, Ireland seems poised to become the first nation to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote. The Catholic Church itself opposes the measure.

In at least a few cases, though, Irish Catholics may vote “yes” not in spite of their priests, but alongside them. Standún, O’Donovan and Dolan are among a group of priests who have bucked Church leadership to voice support for the amendment. Speaking to BuzzFeed, The Rev. Tony Flannery, founder of the reform-minded Irish Association of Catholic Priests, estimated that 25 percent of the country’s clergy would vote”yes.”

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...-new-generation-of-irish-catholics-in-ireland

If Ireland votes "yes" to same-sex marriage, it will have had much to do with the younger generation. According to a recent survey, 90 percent of 18- to 35-year-olds in Ireland support the proposed Constitutional amendment.

Yet quite a lot of these younger voters would, no doubt, identify as Catholic to some degree. Eighty-four percent of the population did so in the 2011 census. Many would expect to be, or have been, married in the church. Many would want a Catholic funeral for a loved one, and not just because it would accord with their relative’s wishes. A sizable number probably go to mass at least occasionally when visiting parents or at Christmas. I imagine more than a few say a prayer from time to time.

Being Catholic in Ireland today does not necessarily mean believing in all of the church’s teachings.

Ninety percent of Irish state primary schools remain Catholic Church-run today (where first holy communion and confirmation are de rigueur), along with a large proportion of secondary schools. However, the church now educates in a society which does not remotely resemble the Ireland of the 1970s, or 1980s even.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...y-voting-for-marriage-equality-this-week.html

In April 2014, the United Nations accused the Vatican of systemically adopting policies that enabled priests all over the globe to sexually abuse thousands of children.

Ireland was an exceptionally bad case, considering its small population.

But this freakish outbreak of sexual abuse was not coincidental.

Over the 20th century, the Catholic Church had an influence on Irish society that was on a similar scale to how the Bolsheviks shaped Russian society from 1917 to the end of the Cold War.

Any Irish citizen who dared to challenge the Church’s dogmatic heterodoxy—particularly its warped attitude to human sexuality—was faced with highly organized structural-institutional violence, social ostracism, and, in many cases, life imprisonment with hard labor.

Women, children, and the poor, suffered the most under these draconian, invisible laws.

What held this powerful clerical force together was The Irish Constitution.

It was enacted in 1937 by the conservative-Catholic visionary, and founder of the Fianna Fáil party, Eamon de Valera. And it placed the family unit as a sacred-central entity in Irish society.

The Constitution is a document that possesses many democratic strengths. It promoted the autonomy of a newly formed nation that was attempting to mould itself into an independent Republic, while simultaneously breaking free from the chains of British imperialism.

But the Constitution’s utopian-like references to family life became the official stamp on the hypocritical-pious Ireland that subsequently emerged. And the self-declared secular egalitarian Republic that was supposed to come about from the 1916 Revolution remained a distant pipe dream.

Highly undemocratic, tribal, and repressive, the Irish Free State, and the Republic that came after it, increasingly became dominated by clerics and bishops, who yielded the same kind of bizarre cultish-absolutism and thirst for power that was the central driving force of far-right European fascist parties from the 1920s till the end of the Second World War.

If the family was portrayed in the Irish Constitution as the perfect model to promote a simple agrarian society which valued love, affection, and human kindness—over say, a Metropolitan society primarily built on commerce and wealth—beneath the surface lay a form of totalitarian control that both the State and the Church continually fed off for decades.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/irelands-huge-step-toward-healing/article24519730/

For decades until quite recently, no one did shame like Irish Catholics. The history of the Republic of Ireland is that of a domineering Roman Catholic Church casting single mothers into the Magdalene laundries and steering gay men into the priesthood, where they’d remain forever chaste and atone for their intrinsic disorder as sexless disciples of Jesus.

The whole world now knows how that worked out. Thousands of unwed mothers, sentenced to slave labour in so-called mother-and-baby homes run by Catholic nuns, saw their children taken from them. If the babies survived, they were placed into adoption; if they didn’t, they were stuffed into unmarked graves, considered unworthy of basic recognition.

The fate of countless gay Irishmen was not much better, and perhaps even worse. Tempted by the sin of homosexuality, they faced a cruel choice – admit their impure thoughts and undergo a form of conversion therapy or deny their sexuality and enter the priesthood. Of course, the brotherhood turned out to be teeming with tortured men just like them. They became reluctant hypocrites, forced to preach the perversity of homosexuality while acting on their desire in sinister ways.

“It’s not easy to be a young, gay teenager and to be told that you’re sick, mentally disordered and in need of electroshock therapy, particularly when you hear it from someone who groped you on your way to class,” Irish novelist John Boyne wrote last year in The Guardian.

Reviewing the 2005 Ferns Report into the sexual abuse of students by Catholic priests in one particularly problematic diocese, author Colm Toibin thought pedophiles was the wrong term for the perpetrators. “They were simply gay; they had believed their homosexuality, in all its teenage confusion, was a vocation to the priesthood. … They moved blindly toward ordination, and, eventually, toward causing immense damage to vulnerable young people.”

Gay women, meanwhile, often ended up as nuns, where they took out their own pain on the teenage girls flung into their care. Selling contraceptives was illegal until 1980 and, even for a while after that, you needed a prescription to get condoms. Church doctrine not only caused unplanned pregnancies, it ensured teenage mothers were shunned by society as “fallen women” instead of embraced as simply naive and human.

Breaking this cycle of self-loathing and false piety was a long time coming. It has taken several inquiries, including the current Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, for the Irish to own up to and come to terms with the past. Just as it’s hard not to feel revulsion at the Catholic hierarchy’s behaviour, not the least of which involved covering up of criminal activity, it’s hard not to feel for the tortured young men and women who were shamed into entering the seminary or convent in the first place.

COOL, WHEN DO THE POLLS OPEN AND CLOSE?

I have been trying to figure this out, but any google search of "poll times" only seems to pull up opinion polls of the referendum. Someone tell me so I can update the OP.

Polls open at 7am and close at 10pm local time. Since there's no electronic voting in Ireland, we may not get results until Saturday, but there will probably be exit polls.

BUT WAIT, SO THAT MEANS...

If Ireland passes this referendum (which looks likely), The United States, Australia, and Northern Ireland will be the only developed, English-speaking countries in the world without marriage equality. And since it's extremely likely the Supreme Court of the United States will rule next month to strike down all gay marriage bans in the country (effectively legalizing gay marriage), that will leave Australia and Northern Ireland.

PLEASE VOTE!

 

[Matt_]

Always surprises me that NI didnt legalise it along with the rest of the UK
Hoping for the best from Ireland

 

[cameron]

BUT I THOUGHT IRELAND WAS LIKE SUPER CATHOLIC?

Hahaha, my mind went straight to that question after seeing the poll results. Are we that predictable? Anyway, the detailed excerpts are appreciated. The Globe and Mail article is a depressing read.

 

[OminoMichelin]

Gay Marriage is zone of those things that you shouldnt need a referendum for. But it looks like it's going to pass anyway, so it's all good.

 

[ivysaur12]

Polls open at 7am and close at 10pm local time. Since there's no electronic voting in Ireland, we may not get results until Saturday, but there will probably be exit polls.

 

[HylianTom]

This'll be a nice punctuation mark while waiting for SCOTUS; we're nearing the midpoint between Oral Argument Day & (Likely) Decision Day.

My Dad's side of the family is Irish, so this'll be something of a sentimental moment..

 

[Dazzler]

I'm an Irish citizen living abroad and I'm sad that I have no vote on this

I can only hope it passes by a landslide

I've never seen young Irish people so politically engaged on social media, it's amazing

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

They wanted to have a referendum on gay marriage here (Costa Rica). Luckily it didn't happen. The church still has too much influence and homophobia is very common.

The majority vote is not the way to go when deciding the fate of minority groups. Specially when they're not the ones suffering the discrimination.

Human rights shouldn't be up for popular vote.

 

[ivysaur12]

The majority vote is not the way to go when deciding the fate of minority groups. Specially when they're not the ones suffering the discrimination.

Nope, but there's a reason why they're doing this versus a normal vote of parliament. See point 1.

 

[Paskil]

Here's hoping for a super majority passage. Also, the Penny gif was made for this since she's wearing green.

 

[Ganzlinger]

If they had made a referendum about this in Brazil, same-sex marriage would be illegal.

 

[Griss]

The downside to living abroad - you can't vote!

Also, lol at anyone thinking Ireland is a religious country anymore. Someone being 'Catholic' is an identity at this point rather than any indication that they go to church or even believe in God. I used to live with my brother and cousin. They'd both fiercely defend their Catholic status while outright claiming not to 'really' believe in god, but while still feeling 'spiritual'.

I only ever met two young adults while in high school all the way to college who went to church voluntarily.

Anyway, this will pass without issue. Hopefully it does something to clear up our reputation. One of my two closest friends in high school was gay, so I'm happy for him.

They wanted to have a referendum on gay marriage here (Costa Rica). Luckily it didn't happen. The church still has too much influence and homophobia is very common.

The majority vote is not the way to go when deciding the fate of minority groups. Specially when they're not the ones suffering the discrimination.

Human rights shouldn't be up for popular vote.

I don't understand this line of thinking. In a democracy shouldn't the majority have a say over how society is run? Why should the opinions of the minority outweigh those of the majority? Because they're 'right'? Well, by whose standards?

I'm also not sure that
a) Human rights actually exist (and yes, this is a highly semantic and legal argument), or
b) That state or church sanctioned marriage is or should be a human right

And all of that is coming from someone who supports gay marriage and would vote yes, and whose whole family will be voting yes.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

I don't understand this line of thinking. In a democracy shouldn't the majority have a say over how society is run? Why should the opinions of the minority outweigh those of the majority? Because they're 'right'? Well, by whose standards?

1- Not when it comes to human rights. Their views may be twisted by a prejudiced society.

2- Again, because they're not the ones suffering the discrimination. In these sort of matters you're not taking any rights away from the majority, you're simply trying to give rights to the people that don't have them.

Like I said before, in my country for example, the majority would have undoubtedly voted no to gay marriage. Homophobia is still too prevalent here. Why should the majority get to decide something that doesn't affect them in the least bit?

This line of thought could be applied to most groups that have been discriminated against.

 

[CDX]

Hope it's a massive landslide for you guys in Ireland (and it looks like it just might be). Put that Penny .gif to good use.

 

[Macadinho]

Yeah it'll pass but the margin will be a lot closer than what the polls say. The tactics of the no side have been so misinformed which has helped bring up the no side percentage.

They've brought surrogacy, adoption and the old "a child needs a mother and father" issues into the debate when adoption by single and the LGBT community is legal, surrogacy isn't lawfully monitored etc.

I would have voted and signed up to vote specifically for this issue but I'm out of the country tomorrow and subsequently can't

 

[coughlanio]

I'll be voting yes.

I don't think it'll pass though

 

[ivysaur12]

I'll be voting yes.

I don't think it'll pass though

If it didn't pass, it would be one of the biggest upsets in polling in the modern western world, considering the margin of support most polls have predicted. Which, again, unlikely.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/poli...ded-for-no-side-to-carry-referendum-1.2214674

 

[maquiladora]

It will pass quite easily, don't worry.

 

[Dazzler]

I'll be voting yes.

I don't think it'll pass though

don't think you need to worry about that

More of interest is how wide the margin of victory will be

 

[kharma45]

Always surprises me that NI didnt legalise it along with the rest of the UK
Hoping for the best from Ireland

It's not surprising at all.

 

[Herne]

A referendum I can vote on that will have immediate and positive results? Haven't voted in years, but I'm still registered, so hell yes I'm voting. Expecting a win, though priests mostly up and down the country telling their congregations to vote otherwise has me worried about the number of elderly people who'll be voting no.

 

[ab.aeterno]

I don't understand this line of thinking. In a democracy shouldn't the majority have a say over how society is run? Why should the opinions of the minority outweigh those of the majority? Because they're 'right'? Well, by whose standards?

No, they shouldn't, and I'll illustrate it in one graph:

If it were purely will of the majority, as you seem to support (I do not wish to put words in your mouth, so correct me if I'm wrong), then the US wouldn't have had nationwide legal interracial marriage until around 1997 when there was (finally) a majority of the public that approved of it. That's 30 years after the Loving v Virginia court case made it legal in states where it never would have been (and in fact was illegal punishable by jail time) otherwise. And that's making the unrealistic assumption for the sake of argument that the approval ratings would have been the same if interracial marriage wasn't allowed; I would contend that approva ratings would have been even slower to hit a majority if people weren't exposed to it long enough to make it normal.

So unless that's an outcome you'd be ok with, I don't know how you could see that and not realize the folly of purely majority rule.

There's a reason the US isn't a pure democracy, and that's because potential for a tyranny of the majority is too great. The founders realized this back when they first drafted articles of confederacy and later the Constitution.

It is moraly imperative that a minority's rights and status not be solely decided by a majority because a majority can deny rights and oppress minorities in perpetuity otherwise by sheer numbers.

So no, I completely and utterly reject the notion of pure majority rule. That would be a world I would never want to live in. Life is miserable enough for many LGBT people in a political system that has checks and protections from that in the court system.

 

[ivysaur12]

No, they shouldn't, and I'll illustrate it in one graph:

If it were purely will of the majority, as you seem to support (I do not wish to put words in your mouth, so correct me if I'm wrong), then the US wouldn't have had nationwide legal interracial marriage until around 1997 when there was (finally) a majority of the public that approved of it. That's 30 years after the Loving v Virginia court case made it legal in states where it never would have been (and in fact was illegal punishable by jail time) otherwise. And that's making the unrealistic assumption for the sake of argument that the approval ratings would have been the same if interracial marriage wasn't allowed; I would contend that approva ratings would have been even slower to hit a majority if people weren't exposed to it long enough to make it normal.

There's a reason the US isn't a pure democracy, and that's because potential for a tyranny of the majority is too great. The founders realized this back when they first drafted articles of confederacy and later the Constitution.

It is moraly imperative that a minority's rights and status not be solely decided by a majority because a majority can deny rights and oppress minorities in perpetuity otherwise by sheer numbers.

So no, I completely and utterly reject the notion of pure majority rule. That would be a world I would never want to live in. Life is miserable enough for many LGBT people in a political system that has checks and protections from that in the court system.

Unfortunately, there's a reason why it probably has to be a referendum, given the constitution, Irish court system, and previous case law.

 

[ab.aeterno]

Unfortunately, there's a reason why it probably has to be a referendum, given the constitution, Irish court system, and previous case law.

Understood. I was simply addressing the role of a majority in minority rights issues generally. Obviously the situation in Ireland is what it is. Fingers are crossed!

 

[coughlanio]

Just to clarify on my reasoning for thinking it won't pass, or will at least, be crazy close:

Polling isn't accurate for particular sensitive topics like this, a large majority of the yes vote will be within the younger generation, who traditionally aren't voters. Also, with the nature of the vote, and the stigma attached to a no vote in the media, people are reluctant to openly say they are voting no. This is especially evident in the no campaign, with not a whole lot of people coming out and saying they're voting no.

Also, look at the following chart for the last referendum on marriage laws:

I'm not saying that's an indication of what's going to happen this time around, but it's a worrying factor. I'm not gay, but I feel invested in this because of my best friend being gay, and I can really see him leaving the country if we return a no vote. We have this moment to do our country, and people proud, and if anyone reading this is currently in Ireland, and registered to vote, please do.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Re: that graph showing approval/disapproval of interracial marriage, that doesn't necessarily indicate what the outcome of a legalization referendum would have been. It's possible for you to disapprove of other people doing something but still think it should be legal. If someone asked me "Do you disapprove of binge drinking?", I'd say yes, but I wouldn't advocate making it illegal.

I also think it's really important that debates about rights and minorities are held at a national level. In all honesty, it makes me pretty uncomfortable when all of the battle goes on at the level of the courts, because if it is happening at the level of the courts and not at the public level, then public acceptance will be much slower to change. I don't think it is a coincidence that countries with *weaker*, not stronger judicial systems, have typically been ahead of those with stronger judicial systems when it comes to legalizing gay marriage.

 

[tryagainlater]

I've seen a lot of the no campaign using the fact that it will be the first time national referendum on gay marriage as a reason to vote no. I've been trying to understand why but I just don't get it.

 

[Herne]

Also, fuck the Iona "Institute" and everything about it.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

I.. have to hope it will pass. Getting the train from Dublin to Tralee tomorrow to vote.

No, they shouldn't, and I'll illustrate it in one graph:

If it were purely will of the majority, as you seem to support (I do not wish to put words in your mouth, so correct me if I'm wrong), then the US wouldn't have had nationwide legal interracial marriage until around 1997 when there was (finally) a majority of the public that approved of it. That's 30 years after the Loving v Virginia court case made it legal in states where it never would have been (and in fact was illegal punishable by jail time) otherwise. And that's making the unrealistic assumption for the sake of argument that the approval ratings would have been the same if interracial marriage wasn't allowed; I would contend that approva ratings would have been even slower to hit a majority if people weren't exposed to it long enough to make it normal.

So unless that's an outcome you'd be ok with, I don't know how you could see that and not realize the folly of purely majority rule.

There's a reason the US isn't a pure democracy, and that's because potential for a tyranny of the majority is too great. The founders realized this back when they first drafted articles of confederacy and later the Constitution.

It is moraly imperative that a minority's rights and status not be solely decided by a majority because a majority can deny rights and oppress minorities in perpetuity otherwise by sheer numbers.

So no, I completely and utterly reject the notion of pure majority rule. That would be a world I would never want to live in. Life is miserable enough for many LGBT people in a political system that has checks and protections from that in the court system.

Well said.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

No, they shouldn't, and I'll illustrate it in one graph:

If it were purely will of the majority, as you seem to support (I do not wish to put words in your mouth, so correct me if I'm wrong), then the US wouldn't have had nationwide legal interracial marriage until around 1997 when there was (finally) a majority of the public that approved of it. That's 30 years after the Loving v Virginia court case made it legal in states where it never would have been (and in fact was illegal punishable by jail time) otherwise. And that's making the unrealistic assumption for the sake of argument that the approval ratings would have been the same if interracial marriage wasn't allowed; I would contend that approva ratings would have been even slower to hit a majority if people weren't exposed to it long enough to make it normal.

So unless that's an outcome you'd be ok with, I don't know how you could see that and not realize the folly of purely majority rule.

There's a reason the US isn't a pure democracy, and that's because potential for a tyranny of the majority is too great. The founders realized this back when they first drafted articles of confederacy and later the Constitution.

It is moraly imperative that a minority's rights and status not be solely decided by a majority because a majority can deny rights and oppress minorities in perpetuity otherwise by sheer numbers.

So no, I completely and utterly reject the notion of pure majority rule. That would be a world I would never want to live in. Life is miserable enough for many LGBT people in a political system that has checks and protections from that in the court system.

You put it better.

 

[coughlanio]

I'm just going to post this too, which my GF took this morning.

 

[Charles Foster Kane]

I'm just going to post this too, which my GF took this morning.

This is another big reason why a referendum for this sort of thing isn't appropiate. It can help generate more hatred and discrimination against the group in question.

 

[8 X 11 Printer Paper]

 

[Madao]

I'm just going to post this too, which my GF took this morning.

wtf. this can't be serious. whoever wrote this seems like he/she was about to go insane.

 

[KPJZKC]

Well I know how I'll be voting.

The 'no' side has been frankly insane over the last few weeks, really seems like they've lost the plot entirely with the tangents they've gone off on.

Genuinely concerned in the back of my mind about the voting split in terms of age - many young people in Ireland are simply not registered to vote (I only registered recently to take part in this referendum, in fact), and the voting power of old, already registered bigots really can't be taken for granted.

Fingers crossed lads.

 

[ivysaur12]

Also, fuck the Iona "Institute" and everything about it.

That too, especially the one where the guy was like, "I've always been for LGBT rights but NOT THIS"

 

[Delusibeta]

I would actually be genuinely be surprised if the winning margin would be anywhere close to 10%, mainly due to lazy yeses, shy nos and the political polling companys' recent track record.

 

[Pankratous]

This has to be someone with a sense of humour rather than a genuine no poster, surely? :L

 

[Link]

I'll wait until the vote is in. As recent elections in Israel and the UK have proven, the vote tends to swing right at the end. Fear/hate-mongering works.

 

[Dr.Acula]

Who would say they'd oppose gay marriage to a pollster or a newspaper? I imagine a lot of people say they're progressive, but in a secret ballot, maybe they vote against it.

 

[8 X 11 Printer Paper]

This has to be someone with a sense of humour rather than a genuine no poster, surely? :L

But one of the mothers can still be his biological mother, it's pretty damn easy to order sperm.....

 

[Stumpokapow]

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, something that's so clearly a human right shouldn't be subject to majority rule. On the other hand, the ends might justify the means and maybe it's better for social acceptance that there be a clear public signal on the issue.

 

[Delusibeta]

I'll wait until the vote is in. As recent elections in Israel and the UK have proven, the vote tends to swing right at the end. Fear-mongering works.

I'm half tempted to go down to the bookies tomorrow and put a sneaky fiver on the no camp winning. I reckon I would get very good odds.

 

[Romez]

Northern Ireland needs to be cut out.

 

[Kangi]

If there's one thing conservatives and bigots can rely on, it's the utterly useless laziness of "liberal only in theory" youths.

I'll try to remain cautiously optimistic.

 

[Slightly Live]

Cut off the top part of the happy gay ireland. =/

 

[Macadinho]

Also, fuck the Iona "Institute" and everything about it.

Indeed a literal "Fuck the Iona Institute" and all the backward thinking and fucking stupid backward shit it lobbies for.

And it's funny, less than two months ago they declared they were not participating in this referendum, then along came Breda O'Brien (Gaf outside Ireland google her name and look at some of the nonsense articles she has written in the past few months) and the rest of their ilk.

 

[ivysaur12]

I'll wait until the vote is in. As recent elections in Israel and the UK have proven, the vote tends to swing right at the end. Fear/hate-mongering works.

Again, if this didn't pass, it would be the biggest fuck-up of a multi-firm national poll on a single issue in a developed western nation since... I don't know.

Remember, the UK was about polling multiple parties around multiple constituencies and it was going to be close, with a conservative lead. The conservatives still won, but more than the polls had anticipated.

This would be something all together different.

 

[TheOnlyOneHeEverFeared]

If there's one thing conservatives and bigots can rely on, it's the utterly useless laziness of "liberal only in theory" youths.

I'll try to remain cautiously optimistic.

Pretty much this. I'll be voting yes tomorrow mind, but I'm not sure what way its gonna go.

 

[Enter The 36 Chambers]

I'm half tempted to go down to the bookies tomorrow and put a sneaky fiver on the no camp winning. I reckon I would get very good odds.

I have 50 on the no vote. I got okay odds when that poll was done.

I'm working out west this month so I won't be driving to Dublin to vote but it's gonna pass. No way in hell it won't