Ireland: a resounding 'Yes'
27/5/15 19:04![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Ireland has voted in favour of legalising same-sex marriage in a historic referendum, where more than 62% of the people voted for changing the Constitution and allowing homosexual couples to marry. This makes Ireland the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage through a popular vote.
And this has happened just a couple of decades after the epoch when homosexual relations were discriminated against by law in Ireland. More than 1.2 million people voted 'Yes', and 0.7 million 'No'. The Yes vote won in all Irish regions except Roscommon-South. The exact wording of the question was, "Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex".
The Catholic archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin has said that if the referendum confirms the position of the young population, then "the church has a huge task to get its message across to young people. (It) needs to do a reality check". He also generously said, "I appreciate how gay and lesbian men and women feel on this day. ... They feel this is something enriching the way they live. It's a social revolution.". Which is encouraging.
Of course, this step did not just come out of the blue. In 2010, the Irish government adopted a law that legalised civil unions, which practically gave recognition to same-sex couples. But there are some important distinctions between a civil union and a marriage, the most important one being that marriage is protected by the Constitution, while civil unions are not. Now the outcome of this referendum erases the legal discrepancy between same-sex couples and married heterosexual couples.
It is notable that the Yes campaign was supported by all major parties, the big employers, and a number of Irish celebrities. Meanwhile, the Church, which has officially maintained the position that homosexuality is a sin, has confined its campaign for the No camp only to the pulpit, perhaps sensing that remaining at the wrong side of history would put them in a very unfavourable position - and this, in quite an uncomfortable time for them (given all the scandals that have rattled the Catholic Church lately). Other aspects of the issue beyond the "sin" question were much more widely discussed - like the right of homosexuals to become parents, or to use the surrogate mother option. Those are of course issues that need to be discussed openly and rationally, and I hope the Irish society will move on to those aspects of the issue, now that the biggest obstacle has been removed.
Whatever happens, myself being half-Irish, I am proud with what the country of my mother has done. This is a monumental change, and the Irish society has indeed shown that it is a modern, open society. And hopefully it will be used as an example for other countries to look up to.
Ireland has voted in favour of legalising same-sex marriage in a historic referendum, where more than 62% of the people voted for changing the Constitution and allowing homosexual couples to marry. This makes Ireland the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage through a popular vote.
And this has happened just a couple of decades after the epoch when homosexual relations were discriminated against by law in Ireland. More than 1.2 million people voted 'Yes', and 0.7 million 'No'. The Yes vote won in all Irish regions except Roscommon-South. The exact wording of the question was, "Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex".
The Catholic archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin has said that if the referendum confirms the position of the young population, then "the church has a huge task to get its message across to young people. (It) needs to do a reality check". He also generously said, "I appreciate how gay and lesbian men and women feel on this day. ... They feel this is something enriching the way they live. It's a social revolution.". Which is encouraging.
Of course, this step did not just come out of the blue. In 2010, the Irish government adopted a law that legalised civil unions, which practically gave recognition to same-sex couples. But there are some important distinctions between a civil union and a marriage, the most important one being that marriage is protected by the Constitution, while civil unions are not. Now the outcome of this referendum erases the legal discrepancy between same-sex couples and married heterosexual couples.
It is notable that the Yes campaign was supported by all major parties, the big employers, and a number of Irish celebrities. Meanwhile, the Church, which has officially maintained the position that homosexuality is a sin, has confined its campaign for the No camp only to the pulpit, perhaps sensing that remaining at the wrong side of history would put them in a very unfavourable position - and this, in quite an uncomfortable time for them (given all the scandals that have rattled the Catholic Church lately). Other aspects of the issue beyond the "sin" question were much more widely discussed - like the right of homosexuals to become parents, or to use the surrogate mother option. Those are of course issues that need to be discussed openly and rationally, and I hope the Irish society will move on to those aspects of the issue, now that the biggest obstacle has been removed.
Whatever happens, myself being half-Irish, I am proud with what the country of my mother has done. This is a monumental change, and the Irish society has indeed shown that it is a modern, open society. And hopefully it will be used as an example for other countries to look up to.
(no subject)
Date: 27/5/15 20:30 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/5/15 06:35 (UTC)Because you either immediately find yourself at the end of the road you're walking, or you haven't started at all - with no intermediate steps inbetween. That's how things work, you know, in the real world. So step out of fantasy world, you Irish people, stop being so gleeful, and stop trying to help change your own society!
(no subject)
Date: 28/5/15 10:46 (UTC)Being hostile to your allies and treating them as enemies is not helping your cause much, either.
Your dismissal of this social achievement of an otherwise very traditional society has been duly noted, though.
(no subject)
Date: 29/5/15 05:54 (UTC)Which is exactly what this referendum was about. But alas, no kudos from you. Instead of acknowledging that a complex problem requires a step-by-step solution, you went for the all-or-nothing approach, and chose to insult those who were trying to work for your cause out of genuine belief in principles. Don't worry, they'll still keep working for that cause, even despite cynics like you.
Riiight. Whatever you say, bro.
(no subject)
Date: 29/5/15 13:00 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 31/5/15 07:43 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/6/15 15:06 (UTC)Yet as someone who loudly preaches intersectionality in both movements, I have to admit I still initially was tempted to wade in and wag my finger and lecture about letting perfect be the enemy of good with regards to Ireland, even if my intent was to do so "kindly."
I think there's a discussion to have about strategic goals, the reality of advocacy in our modern world, cultural inertia and how to win battles without losing the war, etc, etc, etc. But ultimately, I think you do have a pretty major point: the status-quo doesn't want to address the most marginalized of voices, and while we cheer about these victories (that are huge deals for many folks, I won't forget that,) we can't forget that for many others they are merely baby steps, or not even steps forward at all, and while we talk about those baby steps eventually bearing fruit for everyone, I don't know how much consolation to them that really is. "Oh, I get to hurry up and wait some more before I get to be treated like a valid human being. Hooray."
Intersectionality is not as easy as just spouting a catch-phrase, I'm discovering. Thanks for taking the time to point that out.
(no subject)
Date: 29/5/15 12:29 (UTC)Ps. If you think that generalizations of the "this community does this and that" type are somehow "constructive", you're of course entitled to keep pretending to care about constructive discourse.
(no subject)
Date: 29/5/15 12:44 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 30/5/15 16:18 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 29/5/15 19:58 (UTC)This same dynamic happened during the civil rights movement, a polar opposite approach to Martin Luther King, Jr. (who saw white northern liberals having a critical element in the process). But some African Americans were taking quite a bit of exception to white liberals giving them lectures on how to advance their own rights, and how instead, they should be oh so grateful getting those rights. If rights can be given or taken away, then you really don't have them (that was George Carlin's point during a bit on the determent of Japanese America citizens during WW2, which was approved by the United States Supreme Court)
Malcolm X:
Brothers, the white man can't give you the solution. You will never get the solution from any white liberal. Don't let them come in and tell you what we should do to solve the problem. Those days are over. They can't do it, and they won't do it.
That's like asking the fox to help you solve the problem confronting the wolf. ... He'll give you a solution that will you right in his clutches, and this what the white liberal does.
Very seldom, you will notice you will find whites who can in any way put up with black nationalists. Haven't you ever wondered why? I mean even the most liberal whites can't get along with the black nationalist.
He just can't stomach it. But he can go along with anything that is integrated, because he knows he can get in there, and finagle it, and have you walking bacwards thinking you'll be walking forwards. No, we don't want that."
There were some pretty radical voices in the Queer movement, particularly during late 1980s, I'm thinking of Luke Sissyfag, and then Larry Kramer, and then the Radical Fairy movement too, still going very strong, which absolutely rejects "hetero-imitation"
(no subject)
Date: 30/5/15 10:22 (UTC)Straight allies do not deserve a cookie for coming around to supporting basic equal protection of the law for gay people. Perhaps a satisfied sigh, a smile, and a relieved "finally" but not a raucous celebration and place on a pedestal. The real test of their being an ally is how they respond to concepts that genuinely challenge their comfort and assumptions about their own "normality" much the way that whites who claim to be not racist are tested by how they respond to notions that challenge the common narratives they have about their own success and how much is due to actual merit.
I remember those radicals you speak about. Quite a lot of what they said and their activism made me uncomfortable and thank goodness for that. I think I am a better person for having had to look at WHY I was uncomfortable.
(no subject)
Date: 3/6/15 07:12 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/5/15 10:39 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/5/15 11:43 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/5/15 11:57 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/5/15 11:53 (UTC)1 of 2
Date: 31/5/15 18:08 (UTC)I disagree completely with oslo about access to legal marriage being an archaic, outdated thing that gay people have no reason to want in and of itself. Marriage as a legal status has been around for a very long time, but it's always changing (marrying for love of your own volition is pretty new), and personally I'm glad to be a part of it and have some stake in wherever it goes next, instead of watching that as a spectator. And others who believe it's an archaic, outdated institution now at least have the ability to reject it, instead of being rejected from it no matter what they think.
But it's like this: the straight majority has the power here and nothing has changed about that. Same-sex marriage, and the various other forms of gay rights that need to be a reality, only happen because straight people want them to (or at the very least stop trying to stand in their way). That's not as it should be, and it's not a problem that gets fixed by the straight majority finally wanting the right thing. It isn't gay people's job to "strive to work with them," or to avoid passing judgment where straight people can hear them...except of course it is, not because that's right but because it's what gets concrete results. Gay people have to act strategically and ask and convince, and react with happiness and avoid bringing up touchy things in response to any step forward, instead of demanding things they have every right to. The entire process revolves not around what's the right thing for the majoirty to do, but about how the majority can feel the best about doing it. That apparently requires dragging it out interminably so that they can get maximum pleasure out of each additional granted thing, instead of settling for granting that the underlying principle is true, and granting all the things that spring from that principle as quickly as possible.
As a gay person the actual easy thing is to ignore this, be happy at the access to marriage, return the high-five and let all that shit slide just because we do, now, have it. It's really tempting to just let it go once you have the stuff you want. It's easier to not think about the fact that the same people celebrating the one form of equal treatment they just granted are going to have to go through the whole process of feeling awesome about granting whatever's left, one thing at a time, because they didn't learn a fucking thing about how wrong it is to deny any form of it for one...more...minute. Fiddle-dee-dee, that's tomorrow, and today I'm getting married, and that's so wonderful I'm just not going to let that negativity ruin it, right? This is the easy way, believe me.
2 of 2
Date: 31/5/15 18:09 (UTC)This vote—and every legalization you mentioned that made it possible for every person you mentioned to marry—doesn't mean same-sex marriage is acceptable NOW; it means it always was, and a mistake is being corrected. There are greater implications to that fact, and they're nothing to be proud of. The majority is fixing their own collective fuck-up here, one that has ruined some of their neighbors' and loved ones' lives for no good reason at all. For gay people there's a happy reaction to have to that—mostly relief that we just happened to be born at the right time to enjoy the result—but it's not the one the straight majority is going to want, because it's not one about what a noble thing they're doing. It'd be good if the majority remembered that and were a little humbled by what legalizing SSM is really acknowledging—that they have been seriously wrong about something for a long time, and have taken a single step in the still-unfinished process of ending that—instead of tsking at gay people for being insufficiently delighted that they finally achieved the task of removing one further inch of their heads from their asses.
Actually I'll throw in a part 3
Date: 31/5/15 18:17 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 31/5/15 19:26 (UTC)And if we're to return to our flawed world, should all those people who celebrated and rejoiced around Ireland be ashamed of what they did?
(no subject)
Date: 31/5/15 19:57 (UTC)Then in your opinion, what's stopping us?
...should all those people who celebrated and rejoiced around Ireland be ashamed of what they did?
I'd have to know which "what they did" you mean in order to answer. Voting in favor of SSM? Putting it up to a vote? Celebrating the result?
(no subject)
Date: 31/5/15 20:00 (UTC)What's stopping us? Tons of social and cultural baggage that have piled on for centuries.
Your turn. Should people be ashamed of this achievement or not? Because the vibe that I've been getting all throughout this thread is that it's no achievement at all, and they've done it in order to feel better about themselves rather than to change their society - or at least begin changing it.
(no subject)
Date: 31/5/15 20:52 (UTC)Okay, how is that stopping us? If we're at the point where we acknowledge gay people should have equal rights in any department, what baggage is preventing us from acknowledging they deserve it in every department, now?
Should people be ashamed of this achievement or not? Because the vibe that I've been getting all throughout this thread is that it's not achievement at all, and they've done it in order to feel better about themselves rather than to change their society - or at least begin changing it.
It's as much of an achievement as ceasing to be awful is. That is an achievement indeed, and one worth celebrating, but it would be better to celebrate it for what it actually is: not us doing a wonderful thing, but us ceasing to do an awful thing. To reiterate: when SSM gets legalized, that isn't because SSM is now acceptable and worth celebrating. It's because it always was acceptable and worth celebrating. By accepting it, we're inevitably acknowledging that we all fucked up by doing the opposite of that until now, because the underlying facts about what gay people are and what they deserve were never any different than they are now. You would agree this is the inevitable conclusion to draw, right?
The vibe I've been getting throughout this post—the one that moved me to de-lurk—is that people want to celebrate the achievement while skipping the greater implications of what it actually means, because what it actually means is a bummer. That's understandable, to say the least. But when you're going so far as to complain about a gay person being unconstructive and counterproductive for not politely indulging that, and referring to their week-old access to marriage in a first-world country as an "opportunity" rather than the rectifying of a greivous wrong, that's crossing a line. It's possible that there really is no unequivocal feeling of accomplishment to get out of any step of this process, and the vibe I get is that people refuse to accept that. But it should be fine, because this simply doesn't revolve around how good it feels to fix this problem.
(no subject)
Date: 31/5/15 20:58 (UTC)That's quite a reach. The complaint was about declaring being "sick of straight liberals" (quote).
Look, this isn't about how someone feels. It's about what's tangibly achievable at this certain point of societal development. Like I said, I'd love to live in a society that can say "let's overhaul our entire concept of sexuality, human relations and marriage", and do it overnight. The reality is, though, that something is stopping society from doing that. So it walks the whole process in small steps. Whether someone feels good about making the next step and the next, is irrelevant. All that matters is to keep making them.
(no subject)
Date: 1/6/15 13:15 (UTC)you should respond to me, instead of playing this game where I have to decide whether to jump into some thread you're maintaining with someone else
Like what you did in your first paragraph here (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1982590.html?thread=149597822#t149597822)? How about you set a personal example of the type of games-free conversation that you expect from others, then I could follow?
Look. This isn't about you. If I had something to say to you, I would have.
(no subject)
Date: 1/6/15 15:14 (UTC)About them doing a specific thing, not existing at all. This is better than the response that misquoted him as saying "I'm so sick of you straight liberals," but not all that much.
There are things I could reply to in disagreement with what he said: that it could be argued that if SSM is important to the straight majority for the reason that it makes gay people more closely resemble them in their minds, then (depressing as it might be to contemplate) that might lead to more urgency for the problems he mentions, rather than complacency. Maybe it really is a necessary element to the majority taking those problems more seriously. I might argue that his rejection of the institution carries more weight when it's actually his to reject: that people are less inclined to listen to someone saying "that's not what I need" when those people are banning the person from it anyway, because it sounds like sour grapes. I could also point out that legal marriage does protect against discriminatory treatment in some circumstances, and that things like the ability to share health coverage does make it life and death for some people. In several ways, I think, this gives gay people a platform they didn't have before. (Is that a good thing, that conforming in some areas is what gives that platform? That would be an interesting debate.)
But the replies I'm seeing aren't about the substance of what he said as much as how hostile and counterproductive he's being by saying it. Instead of replies explaining why they believe marriage is such a huge step and not the tiny afterthought he thinks it should be, they talk about how he's insulting everyone who thinks so by saying otherwise. I see, frankly, people annoyed that their parade is being rained on by one of the very people they expected to pat them on the back, and who seem to consider that annoyance--their hurt feelings--the biggest deal about what he said.
Look, this isn't about how someone feels. It's about what's tangibly achievable at this certain point of societal development.
But what dictates what's tangibly achievable? I'd say the feelings of the majority who, in the end, control this progress. I don't really agree with oslo that marriage is that piddling an achievement, but I find it hard to disagree that its prioritization has a lot to do with what that majority wants to see most, and less to do with what's most urgently needed for gay people.
Like I said, I'd love to live in a society that can say "let's overhaul our entire concept of sexuality, human relations and marriage", and do it overnight. The reality is, though, that something is stopping society from doing that.
"Something" what, though? Oslo has said what he thinks--straight people who, deep down, are happiest when the problem they're fixing is that gay people don't sufficiently resemble straight ones. I've said what I think--straight people who, deep down, can't let go of wanting to feel as much like good people along the way, ironically by unnecessarily dragging things out so they don't miss an opportunity for that feeling (instead of doing the best good thing, which is letting go of the need to feel maximum satisfaction about it by letting things go faster). You've been pretty general, though. What does "baggage" specifically entail here?
Whether someone feels good about making the next step and the next, is irrelevant. All that matters is to keep making them.
But the thing is that we're not talking about an actual staircase carved in stone. Every step, and the size of every step, was created by us as an intellectual concept. What actually requires us to shrug every time someone points out how unnecessarily protracted this process is and say that's just the way things are? Clearly not a feeling of actual futility or an inability to reshape society, or we wouldn't be bothering with taking steps at all. Why is this the part of the situation it's not only okay to give up about, but to actually chastise people for having a vocal problem with?
(no subject)
Date: 1/6/15 11:09 (UTC)Reminds me of how in America we tend to attribute the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act with the "defeat of racism" when what was actually defeated as White Supremacism. While an accomplishment worthy of noting, the accomplishment is more of a sober reminder of the work left to be done than an August 15th, 1945 party. Tellingly, Dr. King did not pack up shop in 1965.
(no subject)
Date: 1/6/15 12:57 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/6/15 13:29 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 1/6/15 14:12 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/5/15 11:48 (UTC)On the other hand, what the referendum achieves is a showing of support for a deeply unpopular government, which is, this week, hurrying to get rid of state assets as per instruction from the IMF and to pass the Irish version of the Patriot Act. Also, attention is taken away from the anti-austerity protests and from the imprisonment of protesters.
(no subject)
Date: 28/5/15 12:02 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 28/5/15 12:52 (UTC)This is Ireland we are talking about. My mother's people, your mother's people. I can remember the Ireland of the '60's and '70's. They have come a long way in a short time. May they go further and with good grace. But the death of Savita Halappanavar still is a stain. Not as bad as the oceans of red on Blighty's account however. But still....