Irish vote of gay marriage

[BlackLabel]

It's about time the North followed suit.

[Troubleatmill]

Funny isn't it.

Marriage has been around for thousands of years, the church never had any interest in it until the last thousand.
That interest grew as it recognised it found a nice revenue stream could be had from it.

And now they make out that marriage is sacred in the eyes of God...... etc.

With 1 in 10 of all people being gay ( in fact it is true of all animals that 1 in 10 is gay ) - even the most religious sorts struggle to come to terms with it being part of "God's plan"


A victory for common sense.

[Kaj91]

Slightly disappointing that one constituency, Roscommon/south Leitrim voted against the referendum, but delighted that it has been passed with such an overwhelming majority in the rest of the country. With eight constituencies left to declare, the Yes side holds 62% of the vote. There'll be a hell of a party in Dublin and elsewhere tonight.

[vonuber]

My Irish cousin is gay, a good day for her.

[s2art]

Troubleatmill said:

With 1 in 10 of all people being gay

Any hard evidence to back that up? Seems way too high to me.

[eldar]

Troubleatmill said:

in fact it is true of all animals that 1 in 10 is gay )

That certainly isn't true for labrador dogs. They'll shag just about anything. The gender of their target is immaterial!

[anonymous-user]

Well done Ireland. (genuine sentiment, I know it sounds like a sarcy comment)

[Troubleatmill]

s2art said:

Troubleatmill said:

With 1 in 10 of all people being gay

Any hard evidence to back that up? Seems way too high to me.

Well...you can google it easily enough - however - start with gay sheep and work your way across different species
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,91...
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/j...

[98elise]

Troubleatmill said:

Funny isn't it.

Marriage has been around for thousands of years, the church never had any interest in it until the last thousand.
That interest grew as it recognised it found a nice revenue stream could be had from it.

And now they make out that marriage is sacred in the eyes of God...... etc.

With 1 in 10 of all people being gay ( in fact it is true of all animals that 1 in 10 is gay ) - even the most religious sorts struggle to come to terms with it being part of "God's plan"


A victory for common sense.

Its actually closer to 2% in humans (survey rather than estimates). Thats aside I can't see any reason why gay people can't marry. The only people that get hurt are the bigots.

[Troubleatmill]

98elise said:

Its actually closer to 2% in humans (survey rather than estimates).

Numbers have varied from 1.5% to 20%. It's circa 10% everywhere else in the animal kingdom.
We won't be any different.

The low number is likely down to society... yada yada yada

[Don]

s2art said:

Troubleatmill said:

With 1 in 10 of all people being gay

Any hard evidence to back that up? Seems way too high to me.

This figure has been bandied about since 1948 and is hogwash. The actual percentage found in modern studies is around 1.5% gay men and 0.7% gay women. So a little over two percent. Get Google out to verify.

However - this does not change the philosophical standpoint of not discriminating against gay people. Doesn't actually matter what the percentage is - being mean to anyone for no other reason than their sexuality is plain wrong.

[Kaj91]

BlackLabel said:

It's about time the North followed suit.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on anything to change in the north, large parts of the six counties are still living in the late seventeenth century.

Then again, if he were alive today, good old King William of Orange, would more than likely be in Dublin celebrating the outcome of the refenrendum.

[Bradgate]

Well done Ireland. I'm very proud of my ancestors' country today. Next job - abortion rights.

As for the % of people who are gay, there was a well -researched piece about this in the Guardian recently. IIRC the current consensus among the experts is that approx 2% of the population is exclusively homosexual, ie they have no sexual attraction to the opposite sex whatsoever. A much larger number of people, around 10%, have at some point had at least one sexual experience with someone of the same sex. Around 90% are exclusively heterosexual, ie they have never done anything sexual with someone of the same sex.

Sounds about right to me.

[Eric Mc]

Kaj91 said:

BlackLabel said:

It's about time the North followed suit.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on anything to change in the north, large parts of the six counties are still living in the late seventeenth century.

Then again, if he were alive today, good old King William of Orange, would more than likely be in Dublin celebrating the outcome of the referendum.

Interestingly, the areas of the Irish Republic that had the narrowest margins between Yes and No were in those areas closest to the Northern Irish border.

[Lefty]

Still amazing that in 2015 30% of the electorate in a Western European country don't believe in equal rights for everyone.

[Kaj91]

Returning Officer Ríona Ní Fhlanghaile declares that Ireland has passed the same-sex marriage referendum by 1,201,607 votes to 734,300.

[Beati Dogu]

Can Irish priests now marry too, or is the church's 1,000 year old ban still in effect.

[Halb]

I always thought it would be a smashing victory for the 'yes' campaign. Every Irish voice I know has been quite vociferous about it. I've only seen 'no's on the news when the religious mentals get asked.
But then my main areas of socialising are artsy and accepting.

I see the Prez thing got votes on as well though no-one seems to be bothered about that.

[Eric Mc]

Beati Dogu said:

Can Irish priests now marry too, or is the church's 1,000 year old ban still in effect.

Like all things Catholic, it's still not supposed to happen but priests can get dispensations to marry.

The referendum in Ireland was not a vote against the Catholic church. It was a vote for equal treatment.

Don't forget that the part of Ireland which now seems most out of line with modern acceptance of gays is Northern Ireland which is predominately NOT Catholic.

[Kaj91]

Eric Mc said:

Interestingly, the areas of the Irish Republic that had the narrowest margins between Yes and No were in those areas closest to the Northern Irish border.

It appears the people of Louth have bucked that particular trend.

Result for Louth: Yes 63.46% No 36.54%. That is 38,758 Yes votes and 22,313 No votes. A margin of 16,445. The turnout was 59.92%.

Things were a lot tighter in Cavan, no change there, tight hoors.