Yes inclusion Yes generosity Yes love Yes equality

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Yes inclusion Yes generosity Yes love Yes equality

Postby seemslikeadream » Sat May 23, 2015 7:15 pm

Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Yes inclusion Yes generosity Yes love Yes equality

Postby Luther Blissett » Sat May 23, 2015 10:30 pm

My partner is a dual citizen of Ireland and was very touched upon hearing that Irish citizens the world over were returning home to cast a vote since there was no absentee ballot in this referendum.
The Rich and the Corporate remain in their hundred-year fever visions of Bolsheviks taking their stuff - JackRiddler
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Re: Yes inclusion Yes generosity Yes love Yes equality

Postby identity » Sat May 23, 2015 10:59 pm

Recognising the scale of the church’s defeat in what was once one of the Vatican’s most loyal nations, Diarmuid Martin, archbishop of Dublin, described the groundswell of support for same-sex couples as a social revolution that did not happen on the last day.

“It’s a social revolution that’s been going on – perhaps in the church people have not been as clear in understanding what that involved,” he said. “It’s clear that, if the referendum is an affirmation of the views of young people, the church has a huge task in front of it,” Martin added.


And what is that task? Convincing those young people that marriage can only legitimately be between one man and one woman, or convincing its administrators that it might be advantageous, if not actually necessary, to modify/adapt its own policies/rules/regulations to the current social reality?
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Re: Yes inclusion Yes generosity Yes love Yes equality

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon May 25, 2015 10:53 am

MAY 25, 2015

Same Sex Marriage as a Declaration of Secular Independence
Ireland: Out of the Darkness and Into the Light
by ROBERT BOLTON
Irish veteran broadcaster Vincent Browne almost reduced me to tears with his heartfelt conclusion to his gay marriage referendum TV special in the iconic The George Bar. Amidst the audience’s tears of joy and celebration following the official confirmation of a win, Vincent reminded us on its significance: “gay Ireland had to hide away for so long and felt abandoned and alone and sad and degraded… I’m proud to be here.” The credits rolled with the crowd singing a cheery Irish chant sung even by Vincent himself. This was and is indeed, as openly gay Irish Health minister put it, “a social revolution.”

This referendum takes us a step further beyond the darkness and into the light. The path to change began decades ago. People who knew they were different got together and formed pockets of resistance. Through their conversations and shared pains, they formed connections that eventually become political. In 1982, Declan Flynn was beaten by a group of young people between 14 and 19 simply because he was gay. He was left to die on the path, and protests followed. Change is incremental, and many have lost their lives through suicide along the march to freedom, but this result is a monumental turnaround.

Irish Catholic history is a dark and grisly legacy of shame, snide and bitterness. Rather than being an institution of love and acceptance, the church’s brutal attitudes, disdain for those who defied its teachings, and narrow-minded visions can only be described as evil. I have often overheard conversations amongst the elderly reminiscing the sneering and gossiping directed at those who missed Sunday mass even if they were sick. Within the language of these stories, there is little talk of resistance and of turning against the tide. It was all discipline and punish. It was all conformity and confinement. Women who were raped or seen as disobedient were sent to the infamous Magdalene Laundries to work long hours, sometimes never to see their families again, had their hair shaven and mattered little.

The supposed loss of community within Irish society is lamented and regretted. It’s a cliché but so true: in the past we knew our neighbours profoundly, gave them bread when they needed it and trusted each other so much so our doors did not need locking.

Still, Ireland is better off now. In the past, vicious homophobia and soul destroying shame probably lead to many suicides that would be subsequently slapped with the deceitful label of ‘accident’ to hide the truth. Reading the history books, one gets a sense that Irish society was a chokingly repressive place. I was born in 1992 and glad it was no earlier. My little country faces enormous challenges ahead: child homeless, a housing crisis, growing inequality, mental health and an ailing health service. Many of these issues are not known to the public. Indeed, much more debate and decisions need to be made in the years ahead.

Today however, we have taken one more step out of the darkness and into the light. ‘Proud’, ‘thankful’, ‘recognised’. Ireland’s message to its LGBT community was ‘We love you too’. Though we may not even know our neighbours, we have not become so atomised so as to abandon compassion, decency and concern for minorities. This was a stunning repudiation of discrimination. Rainbows appeared over Ireland’s capital and over my own city of Cork. Ireland’s support of same sex marriage is a declaration of secular independence. Today Ireland did not just go against the tide, it turned the tide around.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Yes inclusion Yes generosity Yes love Yes equality

Postby 82_28 » Mon May 25, 2015 11:29 am

One of my best friends is a gay Irish kid going back almost 20 years by now. He has a husband and all that.

BUT. When it comes down to it no matter how many gay friends I have I will never understand having a fancy for your same gender. This is not meant as some sort of attack at all. I have so many gay friends it's not even funny. I just will never know how you kids do it. I've thought about it in the sense of busted relationships and maybe I should "turn gay" because all I have ever wanted was a companion. And I have many. But that's how I view it. Trusted companionship. Equality is great though for all souls on Earth and beyond! :thumbsup
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
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Re: Yes inclusion Yes generosity Yes love Yes equality

Postby slomo » Mon May 25, 2015 11:26 pm

Congratulations Ireland!!

I've always had a preference for guys with Irish ancestry (though my partner is mostly English/Scottish with some Irish thrown in for good measure).

I don't think my partner and I will be heading for Ireland any time soon. We live in a US state that allows same-sex marriage ... we'll be getting married some time in the next year or two, but the exact timing needs to be figured out based on some practical considerations.

As a philosophical point, I am willing to listen to objections to gay marriage that are based on an understanding of how (heterosexual) marriage as a concept has changed from one that was more of a business arrangement focused on transgenerational transmission of culture and wealth (thereby excluding relationships that were set up for procreation). In other words, that same-sex marriage as a phenomenon is a symptom of a much larger reconfiguration of culture around the concepts of sex, procreation, and romantic love. However, this nuance is lost in 99.99% of conversations, and almost without fail the critics of same-sex marriage ultimately reveal themselves to be mean-spirited bigots. So I've stopped trying to have that conversation. Other gay people get too emotionally threatened, while the right-wingers just get too mean. (As a side note, when I talk about such things, my partner just rolls his eyes and tunes me out.)
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