The same-sex marriage referendum debate

[Maguire01]

But to your point Maguire adoption is not on the table here, just Marriage.

Yes, so all stories of children being denied a mother or father, or whether a gay couple can provide an upbringing as well as a straight couple are totally irrelevant here. They're being use, either deliberately or through ignorance of what the referendum is about, as an argument against gay people being allowed to marry.

I think it is fairly clear who is deliberately ignoring things. The question is whether an institution supported by society because of its role in nurturing children and encouraging men and women come together to have and nurture those children, should be extended to a union not involving both men and women.  Clearly, it shouldn't, in any society that hadn't become captive to interest groups.

Who is deliberately ignoring things? You happen to have a very narrow understanding of the purpose of marriage. The ability or intention to have children is not a requirement of marriage as it exists. Should marriage be denied to infertile couples? Should it be denied where the woman has reached a certain age? Or maybe just withhold any benefits until a child arrives? If not, why not?

[The Iceman]

armaghniac unfortunately you can't argue on this issue from a religious perspective. I agree with your points and your understanding of marriage as defined by the Church. Unfortunately the Church gave up any say/rights to the word "Marriage" a long time ago when we didn't stand up against Marriages outside the Church, Marriage of Divorced, Marriage of non Christians. It's gone. There is no fight here on the grounds of re-defining Marriage in society. I don't agree with it, but we took our eyes of the ball a long time ago as a Church.

Maguire aside from the technicalities of it all at least recognize the correlation between same sex marriage and same sex parenting. One opens the door for the other.

I will say the Joe.ie video is very typical of the Gay agenda. There is no tolerance of a no-vote. Democracy?

[Maguire01]

Maguire aside from the technicalities of it all at least recognize the correlation between same sex marriage and same sex parenting. One opens the door for the other.

Same sex parenting will happen regardless of the referendum result, therefore I don't see the correlation.

[The Iceman]

Maguire aside from the technicalities of it all at least recognize the correlation between same sex marriage and same sex parenting. One opens the door for the other.

Same sex parenting will happen regardless of the referendum result, therefore I don't see the correlation.

Maguire will you not just be a normal lad for a half a second and stop conversing with an aim to winning.
Can there not be chit chat on the forums or is everything a "debate" and not a "discussion"?

[Maguire01]

Maguire aside from the technicalities of it all at least recognize the correlation between same sex marriage and same sex parenting. One opens the door for the other.

Same sex parenting will happen regardless of the referendum result, therefore I don't see the correlation.

Maguire will you not just be a normal lad for a half a second and stop conversing with an aim to winning.
Can there not be chit chat on the forums or is everything a "debate" and not a "discussion"?

It's not about "winning" anything. Is it not the case that gay couples will be parents regardless of whether they will be allowed to marry? That being the case, two separate debates are being mixed up here.

And I'm not sure what you want by "discussion" that you're not getting. Do you just want me to agree with you?

[muppet]

Let's hear from David Quinn:

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2015/04/17/david-quinns-facts-of-life/

David Quinn  Founder of the Iona Institute, outlines the No Campaign's strategy for May's Marriage Referendum.

A masterclass in them and ussery.

Stay for the call and response.

David Quinn: "The referendum coming up is one of the most important we've ever faced and, actually, it's connected, to my mind, with any possible abortion referendum.

If we lose this badly, I think they will have an abortion referendum in 2017. If we keep this close, or we manage to win, it'll frighten them off an abortion referendum for years to come. So I think, actually, this is connected to protecting the 8th amendment of the constitution which is a pro-life amendment.

So the two issues are linked. If they can beat us badly on marriage, they'll feel they can beat us on the abortion issue. So this is really, really an important battle – not for just what marriage and what the family is all about but for the pro-life section of the constitution, too."

"Now what's at stake here? An awful lot of people around the country, at the moment, who are inclined to vote Yes are asking themselves, 'well, sure what's the harm? If two nice fellahs who love each other get married, how does that affect me, what's the harm? what else does it affect?' And they can't think of what else it affects, so they're inclined to vote Yes.

Now that Yes support is actually quite soft. A lot of the opinion polling is showing it's soft. So there is still a battle to be fought and it's a battle we can win if we can persuade enough people, actually, there are consequences that haven't been thought of yet, that haven't been flagged to people because, as we know, our media are just, almost completely on the side of the Yes campaign.

And we're essentially hearing propaganda all the time. Marriage equality, yes to equality, yes to love, equal love, all these sort of mantras and soundbites the whole time.

And I mean I go on a few programmes here and there but it doesn't compare to very soft interviews with gay rights campaigners on the Late Late Show or the Saturday Night Show or the John Murray Show or the Ray D'Arcy Show or whatever the case may be so there's been almost uninterrupted propaganda for years.

And it's intensifying at the moment because they're trying to get as big a lead as they possibly can before the referendum properly begins towards the end of this month."

"Now, I'll get into the substance of the issue in a moment but I mean there's a lot of heart to be taken from this fact: there's been many referendum campaigns in which the position favoured by what we call official Ireland and Dublin has started out way ahead and has lost, so there's been EU treaty referendums, where the pro-EU side has started off massively in front and it's lost.

There was the recent Seanad referendum, started out way in front and lost, the Oireachtas inquiry referendum started way in front and lost and the children's rights referendum of 2012, I think it was, the end of 2012, with four weeks to go, the Yes side and it was on 74% and the No side was on 4%. There was practically no No side.

There was John Waters and Kathy Sinnott and a few other people. The No side and the children's rights campaign spent something like €18,000, the Yes side spent over €1million and all the media on their side and yet, on the day itself, within a space of four weeks, the No side went from 4% to 42%.

Now if that can we done, we can do it in this referendum but do, we can do better because a lot more people are energised to support a No side this time than last time. So don't be depressed by opinion polls."

[Later]

David Quinn: "The right to marry in our constitution comes with the right to found a family and that means the right to have children. When you give someone the right to marry, now you can't stop people having children if they want to, and they're not married and they want to have children, they're going to have children.

But there's a legally recognised right to have children when you marry under our constitution. So when you're giving a right to marry, you're giving a right to have children also. So when you're giving a right to men to marry you're also giving them the right to have children, you're giving two women the right to have children. Now when you give two men the right to have a child, what is missing from the child's life?"


Audience: "A mother."

Quinn: "Precisely. And the converse, if you give two women the right to have a child what's missing from that child's life?"


Audience: "A father."


Quinn: "A father. Now this is simply the most basic facts of life. It's literally baby stuff in every possible sense of that word because it is completely simple to understand and it is literally about babies. And it's about mothers and fathers. And it's about the birds and the bees. So, when we talk about giving people rights, you've got to consider, would anybody else's rights be affected. And conversely, by that, would anybody else's rights be harmed and taken away?

You see people often say, 'this is like giving the right of a black person to marry a white person because, in certain American states and in South Africa inter-racial marriage is banned and they try to compare this to that, or they try to say it's like the American south where they had segregation or South Africa where they had apartheid but when blacks were given equal rights, nobody else's rights were affected. So it was completely fair and acceptable and defensible.

There was nobody...when a black person could sit anywhere they liked on a bus or use any drink fountain or go to any school or get married to whom they liked, nobody else's rights were affected – least of all the rights of children. But if you give two men the right to have a child, this comes with the right to marriage, or two women the right to have a child, which comes with the right to marriage, it affects the rights of children.

Because if we believe a child is going to have a mother and father, we cannot possibly countenance same-sex marriage, just can't do it. And the Government knows perfectly well that this is what's going on.

The Government knows perfectly well that the change in the article involves the family – we are redefining the family. We are kicking out of the law the notion that a child ought to have a mother and a father because what is recognised by our constitution at the moment is the family of man, woman and child.

And we know that not all married couples have children. But we also know that every child has a mother and father and that's much more fundamental. And even if every man and woman can't have a child, if they adopt let's say, they'll still give the child a mother and father.

So what we're really saying in our constitution right now is the family is founded on a union of a man and a woman and if a man and a woman got married, and they have a child, that child will have a married mother and father who're committed to their welfare – that's what we're saying.

It is simply a recognition of basic facts of life. Now I believe in calling different things by different names. The union of a man and a woman is clearly different from the union of a man and a man and should be given a different name. I mean a bike and a car are two modes of transport but you give them different names to give them so you know, you can distinguish between the two different things.

So even if we did allow same sex marriage, it will remain a fact that the union of a man and a woman will still be different and should be called something different. So, what's going on here actually is, we are being asked to pretend that two different things are the same.

We're being asked to pretend that the union of two men and two women is the same as the union of a man and a woman when they're clearly not the same and this is why using words like 'equality' is completely misleading."


Poor David has been suffering at the hands of this pro-gay propaganda for 'years'. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, he has no difficulty whatsoever with the 2,000 years of anti-gay propaganda and the terrible treatment of gays that it led to.

[paul768]

The referendum is a sideshow, a distraction. The gov has thrown a stick and the population has gone bounding after it. Why was there not a referendum on the new taxes and permanent austerity? Why are we not consulted on stuff that matters.

There is a referendum because this requires a change to the constitution. The others don't. So we elect politicians to take those decisions. It's called democracy. It can be very inconvenient.

And this particular issue may not matter to you, but it's very important to a lot of people.

It's directly important (perhaps), to one fifth of one per cent of the population.

I agree, Representative Democracy certainly is very inconvenient. Our political "representatives" have committed us all to €390,969 each to reimburse international finance. Who does this represent?
Direct Democracy was was in our 1st constitution and should be reinstated.

[muppet]

The referendum is a sideshow, a distraction. The gov has thrown a stick and the population has gone bounding after it. Why was there not a referendum on the new taxes and permanent austerity? Why are we not consulted on stuff that matters.

There is a referendum because this requires a change to the constitution. The others don't. So we elect politicians to take those decisions. It's called democracy. It can be very inconvenient.

And this particular issue may not matter to you, but it's very important to a lot of people.

It's directly important (perhaps), to one fifth of one per cent of the population.

I agree, Representative Democracy certainly is very inconvenient. Our political "representatives" have committed us all to €390,969 each to reimburse international finance. Who does this represent?
Direct Democracy was was in our 1st constitution and should be reinstated.

Our banks created the debt, the ECB put the gun to our heads and the Government of the day committed is to paying it off. After that there was no going back. Our politicians were merely hopelessly out of their depth, then and now.

The real democratic deficit was in the actions of the ECB.

[The Iceman]

Maguire aside from the technicalities of it all at least recognize the correlation between same sex marriage and same sex parenting. One opens the door for the other.

Same sex parenting will happen regardless of the referendum result, therefore I don't see the correlation.

Maguire will you not just be a normal lad for a half a second and stop conversing with an aim to winning.
Can there not be chit chat on the forums or is everything a "debate" and not a "discussion"?

It's not about "winning" anything. Is it not the case that gay couples will be parents regardless of whether they will be allowed to marry? That being the case, two separate debates are being mixed up here.

And I'm not sure what you want by "discussion" that you're not getting. Do you just want me to agree with you?

No I don't want/need you to agree with me. But this is a discussion board. Everything doesn't have to be a debate and you respond to  "conversation" like a debate master with a matter of fact tone and unfriendly air. It wouldnt hurt you surely just to have a bit of manners or treat people like you maybe care. OR is that care only reserved for homosexuals? or whatever cause you choose to champion.... hard luck in the football by the way.

[T Fearon]

Pleased to see the number of Vote No posters in Dublin yesterday.As they quite rightly say,"Every child deserves a mother and a father" who could take issue with that?

[Maguire01]

Maguire aside from the technicalities of it all at least recognize the correlation between same sex marriage and same sex parenting. One opens the door for the other.

Same sex parenting will happen regardless of the referendum result, therefore I don't see the correlation.

Maguire will you not just be a normal lad for a half a second and stop conversing with an aim to winning.
Can there not be chit chat on the forums or is everything a "debate" and not a "discussion"?

It's not about "winning" anything. Is it not the case that gay couples will be parents regardless of whether they will be allowed to marry? That being the case, two separate debates are being mixed up here.

And I'm not sure what you want by "discussion" that you're not getting. Do you just want me to agree with you?

No I don't want/need you to agree with me. But this is a discussion board. Everything doesn't have to be a debate and you respond to  "conversation" like a debate master with a matter of fact tone and unfriendly air. It wouldnt hurt you surely just to have a bit of manners or treat people like you maybe care. OR is that care only reserved for homosexuals? or whatever cause you choose to champion.... hard luck in the football by the way.

I don't know what prompted you to "play the man". I don't know how to communicate a friendly air when typing brief replies on my phone. Smilies? I don't know where my 'bad manners' are. Have I insulted you?

As for the "matter of fact tone", some things are matter of fact. Like on this topic, where some are presenting the referendum as leading to gay people raising children, whereas they'll be able to raise children anyway.

I don't know what you mean or what you're implying by asking me if my 'care' is "only reserved for homosexuals".

[muppet]

Pleased to see the number of Vote No posters in Dublin yesterday.As they quite rightly say,"Every child deserves a mother and a father" who could take issue with that?

You!

You blame the father and mothers for child sex abuse by the clergy. Remember?

[Franko]

Pleased to see the number of Vote No posters in Dublin yesterday.As they quite rightly say,"Every child deserves a mother and a father" who could take issue with that?

You!

You blame the father and mothers for child sex abuse by the clergy. Remember?

Can we please not ruin another thread with this debate. There's numerous dedicated to it.

[muppet]

Pleased to see the number of Vote No posters in Dublin yesterday.As they quite rightly say,"Every child deserves a mother and a father" who could take issue with that?

You!

You blame the father and mothers for child sex abuse by the clergy. Remember?

Can we please not ruin another thread with this debate. There's numerous dedicated to it.

It is perfectly valid to expose the hypocrisy of Fearon. Here he is pontificating saying 'every child deserves a mother and father', while on the others thread he shamelessly blames them for the callous abuse of their own children.

On top of this, can anyone point out how the legislation will deny any child a mother and father?

Read the David Quinn argument I posed earlier and you will see that he claims this debate is really about abortion. I haven't heard any No campaigners asking him to return to this planet and remain on topic.

[Maguire01]

Pleased to see the number of Vote No posters in Dublin yesterday.As they quite rightly say,"Every child deserves a mother and a father" who could take issue with that?

Where were all these people protesting about single people being allowed to adopt? Did that not deny a child? What did you do to challenge that?