Big win in Ireland, which becomes the first country to approve gay marriage by popular vote. I don't believe in putting civil rights to a popular vote, but it worked out spectacularly this time, with the vote every bit as lopsided as the polls going in. (Polls on gay issues have traditionally not translated with accuracy to the ballot box.)
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/23/europe/ireland-refe … index.html
And then what to make of this weird poll. Americans seem to think the country is close to 25 percent gay! Boy, I guess this reflects the media exposure we've been getting in recent years, but it also reflects rather poorly on how informed the American people are. We are actually closer to 5 percent of the population rather than 25. So is this misperception a good or bad thing?
http://www.queerty.com/poll-americans-think-this- … s-20150522
Ameirbear, thanks for your insight from having lived there. It helps us gain perspective.
I know I have shown this graphic before, but now seems a great time to use it again.
I'm very hopeful the Supreme Court will give this country a quick and easy solution. If they don't, the issue will drag on for years, as states in which the GOP is ruled by the religious right will NOT change policy, regardless of what the polls in their states say. Texas politics are essentially governed by a hard-core right-wing minority that only makes up something like 15-20 percent of the population. It's ridiculous that a relatively small minority holds the state hostage, but that's the way it is here, and in a number of other GOP-dominated states.
There had been some discussion and much activism to bring marriage equality to a vote in the Dail, Ireland's House of Commons equivalent in the Eirachtas, the Irish Parliaent. This would have been to enhance the already enacted, but woefully inadequate civil partnerships legislation that had been on the books for several years. But, there had been a previous (Irish) Supreme Court ruling that interpreted the Constitution as failing to specify or authorize the genderless requirement necessary to enact Marriage Equality in Ireland. For that reason, a plebiscite authorizing a change to the Constitution was necessary.
Thanks for the corrections 1) I meant Hibernian not Iberian and 2) You would certainly know your Irish history better than I.
The big change in Catholic Ireland, from my perspective, is the pope. Being a Jesuit he questions doctrine as it is one of the basic principals of that Christian sect. They, and therefore he, looks for the more simple answers to simple basic questions like ‘are all people of equal importance to their god’ and ‘should the imperfect human judge anothers.’ The local Iberian Catholic leaders needed to direct hate towards others so that their own blistering ungodlinesses were kept hidden. Their stone and stained-glass cathedral screens have been crumbling with the exposing of the women of Ireland's Magdalene Laundries Run by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity Convents, as well as the Irish priest sexual abuse scandals. They have not done well to direct their religion as a unifying force of harmony in their own country either.
Perhaps the Northern Irish people hit their bottom and had to finally face their reality that it was justification using the hate that their church was offering in the guise their body and blood of Christ on the sabbath. They have begun their twelve steps of recovery where their higher power was nothing more than a justification for them to drink the lies they were served upon their own requests. I hope their recovery succeeds better than the percentages of their Alcoholics Anonymous equivalent and I also hope that this possible success story will inspire other countries with similar addictions to do the same especially here in the USA.