Huge Republic of Ireland vote for gay marriage

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A couple of thousand gay friendly folks flying to cast a ballot did not make these numbers. The church rolled over because of its weak position.

No, but those few thousand were symptomatic of the larger social movement.

I'm not sure why it makes you feel better to blame the church, but it's just not true. This was a social and political statement, not a religious one.

In Ireland, religious, social and political issues are all tied together. The Church made it that way over centuries. It is breaking down now because of the child abuse scandals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A couple of thousand gay friendly folks flying to cast a ballot did not make these numbers. The church rolled over because of its weak position.

No, but those few thousand were symptomatic of the larger social movement.

I'm not sure why it makes you feel better to blame the church, but it's just not true. This was a social and political statement, not a religious one.

In Ireland, religious, social and political issues are all tied together. The Church made it that way over centuries. It is breaking down now because of the child abuse scandals.

Well, that's your opinion. As someone with deep ties with Ireland, I think that's on the face inaccurate, and at the very least simplistic.

[Anonymous]

To the poster who thinks priests who abuse young boys are representative of all homosexuals: Do fathers who abuse their daughters taint all heterosexuals?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the poster who thinks priests who abuse young boys are representative of all homosexuals: Do fathers who abuse their daughters taint all heterosexuals?

Nobody said that- merely that such priests are homosexuals which bizarrely only of the dcum apologists contested.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A couple of thousand gay friendly folks flying to cast a ballot did not make these numbers. The church rolled over because of its weak position.

No, but those few thousand were symptomatic of the larger social movement.

I'm not sure why it makes you feel better to blame the church, but it's just not true. This was a social and political statement, not a religious one.

In Ireland, religious, social and political issues are all tied together. The Church made it that way over centuries. It is breaking down now because of the child abuse scandals.

Well, that's your opinion. As someone with deep ties with Ireland, I think that's on the face inaccurate, and at the very least simplistic.

As someone who also has deep ties with Ireland, I have to respectfully disagree. The Church in Ireland lost its moral authority in the wake of the child abuse scandals, and that paved the way for this vote to pass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A couple of thousand gay friendly folks flying to cast a ballot did not make these numbers. The church rolled over because of its weak position.

No, but those few thousand were symptomatic of the larger social movement.

I'm not sure why it makes you feel better to blame the church, but it's just not true. This was a social and political statement, not a religious one.

In Ireland, religious, social and political issues are all tied together. The Church made it that way over centuries. It is breaking down now because of the child abuse scandals.

Well, that's your opinion. As someone with deep ties with Ireland, I think that's on the face inaccurate, and at the very least simplistic.

As someone who also has deep ties with Ireland, I have to respectfully disagree. The Church in Ireland lost its moral authority in the wake of the child abuse scandals, and that paved the way for this vote to pass.

I dunno. It may have played a role, but the drift away from orthodoxy suspiciously mirrors that in other Western countries that haven't had similar scandals. And Mary Robinson was elected in 1990...

If you're interested in such things, this is an interesting paper:
http://scp.sagepub.com/content/57/1/15.short?rss=1&ssource=mfr

Irish Secularization and Religious Identities: Evidence of an Emerging New Catholic Habitus
The author identifies major changes since the 1960s that have transformed the role of religion in Irish society. An analysis of Irish data from the 2006 survey “Church and Religion in an Enlarged Europe” reveal that these have culminated in a shift in the religious and spiritual identities of young Irish Catholics aged 18—29. This shift is linked to a decline in the power of the Catholic Church in Ireland within education, social welfare, public policy and the media, and its subsequent demise as the sole arbiter of private morality. Rather than having turned to new spiritual expressions, young Irish Catholics embody a new Catholic habitus. Although they still have a strong cultural attachment to Catholicism they exercise a great deal of autonomy in their religious practices, beliefs and attitudes, and their ways of being religious and spiritual appear less institutionalized than older cohorts.

The paper was written in 2010 about a survey from 2006, but it perfectly predicted 2015. Young Irish Catholics interpret their religion in their own way -- and they think their gay friends should be able to get married.

[Anonymous]

now that progressives control the meanings of words, we may as well go and pray in a chapel waiting for the end times.

[Anonymous]

This article is a lot more insightful and nuanced then most of the dcum opinions:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/05/23/world/europe/for-one-irish-couple-backing-gay-marriage-is-a-matter-of-family-values.html?_r=0

Some key quotes:
Proponents of same-sex marriage in Ireland have promoted the cause as pro-family, and the video attests to how full acceptance of gay marriage can support an entire family. In a sense, it promoted one traditional Catholic value, the importance of family, against a longstanding Catholic prohibition against homosexuality.
We are Catholics, and we are taught to believe in compassion and love and fairness and inclusion


I'm very Irish-American and very Catholic and my facebook feed has been absolutely blowing up the last few days with happy posts about this vote.

[Anonymous]

I'm a person living in Dublin and voted last week. It was not a slight to the church. It was nothing more than this the majority of the country wanted equality for every citizen. We had civil partnerships but this referendum allows anyone to marry the person they love and all the privileges that go with that. The no campaign tried to pull the while what about the children thing but it backfired and the yes campaign got support from families like my own - heterosexual couple with two children. It is a basic human right for a person to be allowed to marry the person they love and I'm so thrilled that my children will grow up in a country where this is the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a person living in Dublin and voted last week. It was not a slight to the church. It was nothing more than this the majority of the country wanted equality for every citizen. We had civil partnerships but this referendum allows anyone to marry the person they love and all the privileges that go with that. The no campaign tried to pull the while what about the children thing but it backfired and the yes campaign got support from families like my own - heterosexual couple with two children. It is a basic human right for a person to be allowed to marry the person they love and I'm so thrilled that my children will grow up in a country where this is the case.

Thank you for your perspective and congratulations on the vote!

[Anonymous]

Irish Secularization and Religious Identities: Evidence of an Emerging New Catholic Habitus
The author identifies major changes since the 1960s that have transformed the role of religion in Irish society. An analysis of Irish data from the 2006 survey “Church and Religion in an Enlarged Europe” reveal that these have culminated in a shift in the religious and spiritual identities of young Irish Catholics aged 18—29. This shift is linked to a decline in the power of the Catholic Church in Ireland within education, social welfare, public policy and the media, and its subsequent demise as the sole arbiter of private morality. Rather than having turned to new spiritual expressions, young Irish Catholics embody a new Catholic habitus. Although they still have a strong cultural attachment to Catholicism they exercise a great deal of autonomy in their religious practices, beliefs and attitudes, and their ways of being religious and spiritual appear less institutionalized than older cohorts.

The paper was written in 2010 about a survey from 2006, but it perfectly predicted 2015. Young Irish Catholics interpret their religion in their own way -- and they think their gay friends should be able to get married.

I think this also describes most young American Catholics. Most American Catholics are likewise favorable on the subject of gay marriage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What comes with this? Legal adoptions? Married school teaching where it's a he he situation?

Your last sentence makes no sense at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Irish Secularization and Religious Identities: Evidence of an Emerging New Catholic Habitus
The author identifies major changes since the 1960s that have transformed the role of religion in Irish society. An analysis of Irish data from the 2006 survey “Church and Religion in an Enlarged Europe” reveal that these have culminated in a shift in the religious and spiritual identities of young Irish Catholics aged 18—29. This shift is linked to a decline in the power of the Catholic Church in Ireland within education, social welfare, public policy and the media, and its subsequent demise as the sole arbiter of private morality. Rather than having turned to new spiritual expressions, young Irish Catholics embody a new Catholic habitus. Although they still have a strong cultural attachment to Catholicism they exercise a great deal of autonomy in their religious practices, beliefs and attitudes, and their ways of being religious and spiritual appear less institutionalized than older cohorts.

The paper was written in 2010 about a survey from 2006, but it perfectly predicted 2015. Young Irish Catholics interpret their religion in their own way -- and they think their gay friends should be able to get married.

I think this also describes most young American Catholics. Most American Catholics are likewise favorable on the subject of gay marriage.

Yup! Opinions on gay marriage are consistently more tied to age/generation than to religion.

[Anonymous]

As a life-long Catholic, I genuinely don't understand why the American church is so adamant on this issue. My church is not involved when two Jewish people marry, it's not involved when two Buddhists marry, I don't understand why it's any concern of the church should two women or two men get married, if it's not happening in a Catholic Church.

I'm another Irish catholic also, and my FB feed is also filled with happy posts from my cousins celebrating the vote. Makes me quite proud to be Irish actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The abuse scandal in Ireland allowed this to happen. This abuse scandal was largely gay abuse. Thus there is a certain irony in what paved the way for this vote.

Child abuse? Very different than consensual sex. Pedophiles have their own sexual orientation. Kids.

I call a priest having an affair with a fourteen year old boy to be an abusive, gay relationship. If you want to pretend it is not homosexually oriented- that is your own fiction.

Pedophiles are very careful not to get caught. Having sex with boys is lower risk because they can't get pregnant and their own shame helps cover the crime.

It has little, if anything, to do with being gay.