The same-sex marriage referendum debate

[Tyrone_redhand]

Look, lets be honest. Most people , instinctively, want to vote yes but , at the same time,  instinctively, want to vote no due to that inherently conservative Irish gene in us that wants to spite those insufferable lefty, self-righteous bollixes that have been braying in our faces these last few weeks.

What we need to do is gently ,but at the same time , forcefully, tell them that, yes, we get it...our sisters are gay , our brothers are gay, our best friends are gay....we get it.........we know the way forward but it kills us to be on the same side of this issue as you pricks so just shut the f**k up , get out of the way,  and let us us vote yes.

 

[Maguire01]

I saw this elsewhere, an interesting perspective
------------------------------------
I know this is pointless. It is richly ironic that this debate drives the "No" argument underground - a vote that dare not speak its name. I post to get it off my chest, to releive my frustration at witnessing the obvious ignored or corrupted in the name of "equality" or religion.

I'm an ordinary 5/8th, straight middle-aged married with kids, card-carrying atheist who strives for understanding and enlightenment. I guess "Humanist". Not a member of or spokesperson for anything.

I'm voting no because

1. It makes sense to me that our constitution reflects the centrality and value of natural reproduction, and the associated long-term commitment of biological parents to the nuture of the resultant children as a basic building block of our society and culture.
2. I recognize that this has little or nothing to do with marriage candidates, married people, single parents, widows, widowers, LGBT or children that are already living. Their circumstances are what they are, other parts of the constitution deal with the living. Its how our constitution and culture properly addresses and provides for the next generation of Irish people yet to be born (LGBT or straight).
3. The debate is hopelessly confused with the GIANT emotional freight of words like "Love", "Marriage" and "Equality".

I'm voting no even though

4. I don't like the look of the spokespersons of the No campaign, who seem to be either gentle bloody Christians or serial contrarians. This is the 1st referendum I find myself on the opposite side to the "liberal media agenda".
5. I am conscious of the pressing need for our society to truly embrace and value our LGBT citizens and guests - and most of all LGBT children. I want to support the LGBT agenda in a concrete way and they are saying clearly that they think a "Yes" vote is such a way.
6. There are a vast array of people and organizations, many of whom I respect, clamouring for a "Yes" vote.

Regarding point 1,2 and 3, I look for an evolutionists view.

Romantic love is the psycological and artistic wrap we put on the extraordinarily strong bonding instint that humans exhibit. Why has have we evolved to have it? It is not necessary for procreation. No shortage of proof points for that. It is so strong, because ALL human children require a (uniquely) large and sustained nuturing from their parents. It is the genetic equity of the biological parents that nature has tested and proven over millenia to be the best basis for a family. You may disagree, but you put your opinion up against the weight of sexual reproduction across the majority of successful species on earth as tested and tuned over millions of years.

Marriage has served as a neccesary social milestone where a couple formalise their bonding before their community and (depressingly) before their god(s). Naturally, our constitution carries on the laws and customs of our ancestors in recognizing the importance of that contract for the future of our country. It excludes LGBTs, because it only exists to provide the naturally selected context for reproduction. If we were immortals, marriage would be inclusive.

Homosexuality, full or partial, remains a scientific enigma. It beggars beleif that such an enormous and influential factor in our society does not have an established consensus view from the scientific community. It is perhaps just more evidence of the dark power of human culture to suppress "awkward truth".

Homosexuality is not an accident or genetic error. A very substantial (10%-20%) of humans are LGBT. There are simply no such thing as errors in a zillion roles of the dice. Scientists have demonstrated models of extraordinary sophistication to illustrate how homosexuality CAN be positively selected via the maternal gene. Why would nature do that?

Has any other minority contributed more to the advancement of our civilisation than LGBT? Maybe I'm over-compensating for my vote? :-) Think about it though. The fields in which gay people excel, and are beleived to have excelled in the past, are the true engines of enlightenment. Could evolution be clever enough to provide LGBTs, largely free from the burden of nurture, free to realise their potential as individuals in order to advance the genetic success of the race/meme? I think so.

If I boil it back to me - if some or all of my childred are gay I will know how precious they are. I will know that from experience and history. But our job is to leave the world better than we found it. If my son has a gay child, that child should never have cause to doubt their value to the world or that they are loved.

A yes vote will be bad for the LGBT agenda in the long run, because it will be eventually reversed and the mistake will set their vital agenda back decades. Like it or not, marriage is for reproduction. The challenge is not to tear down the hetero world, it's to help our world TRULY understand the value of diversity, to be ready to love and value all equally.

Where did you copy this one from?

[easytiger95]

I saw this elsewhere, an interesting perspective
------------------------------------
I know this is pointless. It is richly ironic that this debate drives the "No" argument underground - a vote that dare not speak its name. I post to get it off my chest, to releive my frustration at witnessing the obvious ignored or corrupted in the name of "equality" or religion.

I'm an ordinary 5/8th, straight middle-aged married with kids, card-carrying atheist who strives for understanding and enlightenment. I guess "Humanist". Not a member of or spokesperson for anything.

I'm voting no because

1. It makes sense to me that our constitution reflects the centrality and value of natural reproduction, and the associated long-term commitment of biological parents to the nuture of the resultant children as a basic building block of our society and culture.
2. I recognize that this has little or nothing to do with marriage candidates, married people, single parents, widows, widowers, LGBT or children that are already living. Their circumstances are what they are, other parts of the constitution deal with the living. Its how our constitution and culture properly addresses and provides for the next generation of Irish people yet to be born (LGBT or straight).
3. The debate is hopelessly confused with the GIANT emotional freight of words like "Love", "Marriage" and "Equality".

I'm voting no even though

4. I don't like the look of the spokespersons of the No campaign, who seem to be either gentle bloody Christians or serial contrarians. This is the 1st referendum I find myself on the opposite side to the "liberal media agenda".
5. I am conscious of the pressing need for our society to truly embrace and value our LGBT citizens and guests - and most of all LGBT children. I want to support the LGBT agenda in a concrete way and they are saying clearly that they think a "Yes" vote is such a way.
6. There are a vast array of people and organizations, many of whom I respect, clamouring for a "Yes" vote.

Regarding point 1,2 and 3, I look for an evolutionists view.

Romantic love is the psycological and artistic wrap we put on the extraordinarily strong bonding instint that humans exhibit. Why has have we evolved to have it? It is not necessary for procreation. No shortage of proof points for that. It is so strong, because ALL human children require a (uniquely) large and sustained nuturing from their parents. It is the genetic equity of the biological parents that nature has tested and proven over millenia to be the best basis for a family. You may disagree, but you put your opinion up against the weight of sexual reproduction across the majority of successful species on earth as tested and tuned over millions of years.

Marriage has served as a neccesary social milestone where a couple formalise their bonding before their community and (depressingly) before their god(s). Naturally, our constitution carries on the laws and customs of our ancestors in recognizing the importance of that contract for the future of our country. It excludes LGBTs, because it only exists to provide the naturally selected context for reproduction. If we were immortals, marriage would be inclusive.

Homosexuality, full or partial, remains a scientific enigma. It beggars beleif that such an enormous and influential factor in our society does not have an established consensus view from the scientific community. It is perhaps just more evidence of the dark power of human culture to suppress "awkward truth".

Homosexuality is not an accident or genetic error. A very substantial (10%-20%) of humans are LGBT. There are simply no such thing as errors in a zillion roles of the dice. Scientists have demonstrated models of extraordinary sophistication to illustrate how homosexuality CAN be positively selected via the maternal gene. Why would nature do that?

Has any other minority contributed more to the advancement of our civilisation than LGBT? Maybe I'm over-compensating for my vote? :-) Think about it though. The fields in which gay people excel, and are beleived to have excelled in the past, are the true engines of enlightenment. Could evolution be clever enough to provide LGBTs, largely free from the burden of nurture, free to realise their potential as individuals in order to advance the genetic success of the race/meme? I think so.

If I boil it back to me - if some or all of my childred are gay I will know how precious they are. I will know that from experience and history. But our job is to leave the world better than we found it. If my son has a gay child, that child should never have cause to doubt their value to the world or that they are loved.

A yes vote will be bad for the LGBT agenda in the long run, because it will be eventually reversed and the mistake will set their vital agenda back decades. Like it or not, marriage is for reproduction. The challenge is not to tear down the hetero world, it's to help our world TRULY understand the value of diversity, to be ready to love and value all equally.

The very definition of passive/aggressive. The piece in bold is jaw dropping in its two facedness. They should have titled it "Gay  lads - yisser great but...."

[Maguire01]

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.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/seismic-shift-needed-for-no-side-to-carry-referendum-1.2214674

[muppet]

Letter to the Editor in today's Irish Independent
==============================

Different can't be equal

A "Marriage Equality Referendum" is what we were originally told we would vote on, and still is.

In the meantime, the Government conveniently brought in the Children and Family Relationship Bill, passing it into law without any public discussion and throwing a spanner in the works. This should have been held over until the equality of marriage' was first decided on. Now the main debate has swung from "marriage equality" to the composition of same-sex families - deliberately confusing the original issue.

Marriage is unique, and thus has no equal or no parallel. "Equality" means equal. A union of male and female could not be equal to a union of two men or a union of two women. Why? Because they are different. Only the male-female union is capable of procreating a natural family and has been so since time immemorial.

The unique marriage union between man and woman, in a loving relationship, to procreate a natural family, with maternal and paternal parents to rear, love and protect them, has no equal on earth. No composition of same-sex family could compare.

If there is anybody in a position to contradict this and provide something more sustainable, I will change my vote from 'No' to 'Yes'.

James Gleeson
Thurles, Co Tipperary



===================================================================================

I hope Mr Gleeson does not mind being quoted here but he succinctly expresses a common viewpoint on the NO side.

What a load of complete nonsense.

Men and women are completely different, yet we (belatedly) managed to convey equal rights on each. Black skinned people are 'different' to white skinned people but again we (again belatedly) managed to allow equal rights. A black man and a white woman are completely different yet...........

As for the remarkable statement 'Marriage is unique, and thus has no equal or no parallel', wtf? This sounds all very grand but it doesn't mean anything. Unique to what? Who decides whether is is unique or not? Can we get a ruling on this, and who would make such a ruling? And what would be the point anyway?

Even if the statement did mean something how does this prove the case for a No vote?

This is a Fearonesque 'fact', confidently presented as an irrefutable truth, but when examined proves to have more holes than swiss cheese.

[The Boy Wonder]

It may be no harm to remind people what we are voting on next week :

ARTICLE 41
3 1° The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.

Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution (Marriage Equality) Bill 2015
"Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex".


The purpose of this amendment is to redefine the accepted meaning of "the institution of marriage" as referenced in Article 41.

[armaghniac]

It may be no harm to remind people what we are voting on next week :

ARTICLE 41
3 1° The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.

It isn't doing a great job.

[The Iceman]

It may be no harm to remind people what we are voting on next week :

ARTICLE 41
3 1° The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.

Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution (Marriage Equality) Bill 2015
"Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex".


The purpose of this amendment is to redefine the accepted meaning of "the institution of marriage" as referenced in Article 41.

The purpose of this amendment is to destroy Article 41. What is left to protect after a YES vote? Marriage and Family are intrinsically linked in the Article, a point which the YES campaign fail to acknowledge. Families are broken and lives are destroyed everyday but that doesn't mean we vote to create more broken families. That is what should be defended. Article 41 is not fulfilliing it's purpose. The family and marriage are under attack....the state is rolling over

[easytiger95]

It may be no harm to remind people what we are voting on next week :

ARTICLE 41
3 1° The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.

Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution (Marriage Equality) Bill 2015
"Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex".


The purpose of this amendment is to redefine the accepted meaning of "the institution of marriage" as referenced in Article 41.

The purpose of this amendment is to destroy Article 41. What is left to protect after a YES vote? Marriage and Family are intrinsically linked in the Article, a point which the YES campaign fail to acknowledge. Families are broken and lives are destroyed everyday but that doesn't mean we vote to create more broken families. That is what should be defended. Article 41 is not fulfilliing it's purpose. The family and marriage are under attack....the state is rolling over

I really don't see how voting to extend the right to marry to same sex couples will create more broken families? Could you enlighten me Iceman? Please lay out the process you see unfolding from this vote, because I honestly cannot see the connection you are making.

[Maguire01]

It may be no harm to remind people what we are voting on next week :

ARTICLE 41
3 1° The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.

Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution (Marriage Equality) Bill 2015
"Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex".


The purpose of this amendment is to redefine the accepted meaning of "the institution of marriage" as referenced in Article 41.

The purpose of this amendment is to destroy Article 41. What is left to protect after a YES vote? Marriage and Family are intrinsically linked in the Article, a point which the YES campaign fail to acknowledge. Families are broken and lives are destroyed everyday but that doesn't mean we vote to create more broken families. That is what should be defended. Article 41 is not fulfilliing it's purpose. The family and marriage are under attack....the state is rolling over

A married couple is a family, regardless of whether they have children. This will allow a same sex couple to be regarded as a family, regardless of whether they have children.

As has been said countless times, this is NOT about children, but that makes it very inconvenient for the No camp. This does not create any broken families. You might consider that adoption or surrogacy would, but that's separate from the issue of marriage.

[The Iceman]

"on which the family is founded" has to make it about children. Marriage is the foundation of family.
There have been countless posts that argue the other side from the perspective of the child that have swept under the carpet as "nothing to do with marriage"

[armaghniac]

all others on the thread - Armaghniac has a goldfish like level of attention span

Sorry to go back to an earlier part of the thread, but research shows that my attention span is in fact above the average human
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/our-attention-span-is-now-less-than-that-of-a-goldfish-microsoft-study-finds-10247553.html

A married couple is a family, regardless of whether they have children. This will allow a same sex couple to be regarded as a family, regardless of whether they have children.

As has been said countless times, this is NOT about children

You've quoted the legal definition, but the fact that most marriages have children and most children are brought up by married people means that any attempt to say, in BLOCK CAPS or not, that this is not about children is either an attempt to deliberately mislead or to restrict debate. Either way, it is a disgrace that this nonsense is repeated by otherwise intelligent people.

[muppet]

It may be no harm to remind people what we are voting on next week :

ARTICLE 41
3 1° The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack.

Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution (Marriage Equality) Bill 2015
"Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex".


The purpose of this amendment is to redefine the accepted meaning of "the institution of marriage" as referenced in Article 41.

The purpose of this amendment is to destroy Article 41. What is left to protect after a YES vote? Marriage and Family are intrinsically linked in the Article, a point which the YES campaign fail to acknowledge. Families are broken and lives are destroyed everyday but that doesn't mean we vote to create more broken families. That is what should be defended. Article 41 is not fulfilliing it's purpose. The family and marriage are under attack....the state is rolling over

On the contrary, this amendment gives Constitutional protection to same-sex couples, which isn't there currently. It does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to everyone else.

There is legislative protection currently in place, but that can be amended on the whim of a Government majority. After an amendment it can't. Legislatively nothing changes, but constitutionally it does and thus can only be further changed by an amendment to the constitution.

[Maguire01]

Gay couples raise children now. Gay couples will raise children regardless of whether the referendum is passed or not. That's what makes the children arguments irrelevant to this referendum.

[armaghniac]

Gay couples raise children now. Gay couples will raise children regardless of whether the referendum is passed or not. That's what makes the children arguments irrelevant to this referendum.

Article 29 also says " Ireland affirms its adherence to the principle of the pacific settlement of international disputes by international arbitration or judicial determination." Perhaps they should take that out as not all outer countries agree with the pacific settlement of international disputes. Then again you have " The dwelling of every citizen is inviolable and shall not be forcibly entered save in accordance with law", but since some are then there is no need for that.

It is bit like saying in GAA terms that there is no use in arguing over the definition of black card as Tyrone will dive anyway.