Marriage equality referendum

I too am nervous about complacency and over confidence, Referendum Campaigns have a habit of narrowing the differences between their percentage points as voting gets closer. In analysing trends people speak about the soft Yes vote and they are the people who have said they would vote for a change but when the question is worded differently they say No. These people can be scared into changing their Yes by arguments that don’t have to hold water, they just have to play into people’s fears.
If you think that people couldn’t reasonably be against gay marriage just think back and remember you could just as well have thought who could reasonably be against people having the right to divorce, who would want to make people stay together for life in misery, or who could be against an Amendment to protect children rights.
On 04/12/2006. Sixty-eight per cent of respondents to The Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll said they would support the proposed changes to protect childrens rights with just 16% opposing the move.
But by 11 November 2012 the children's rights referendum had been passed by a narrow margin, with final results from all count centres across the country showing a result of 58pc in favour versus 42pc against.
A lot of that loss of support happened because of fear campaign was launched against it concentrating on the terrible things that could happen if the act was passed and ignoring once again the terrible things the act was designed and intended to prevent.

I know a lot of people have changed their attitudes to LGBT people I just don’t want to underestimate the opposition. If you think of it in sporting terms look at what can happen to the team that is over confident when faced with an underdog that really wants to win. I imagine the Catholic church will rally against us and may join with other churches and religions to do so, conservative Ireland will be out in force with leaflets at church doors, parish halls, hospitals, old folks homes, shopping centers and door to door. Just because this is not the kind of community you may belong to a lot of Ireland does relate that way and I would urge people not to underestimate all of that when it comes to a National Vote.
Also remember Irelands broadcasting watchdog the BAI has directed that when it comes to a Referendum ”The allocation of airtime must be equitable and fair to all interests and undertaken in a transparent manner. It won’t be our choice who we argue with and it won’t matter if the anti gay marriage groups are in the minority, they will be presented with equal air time to present their arguments against gay marriage. Mostly I think they will be spreading fear and mostly we will be clarifying misconceptions and allaying fears presenting a reasonable need that also speaks to peoples empathy and emotional understanding.

Going door to door or campaigning anywhere or just having conversations people will need to be prepared to answer what you may consider others unreasonable arguments in a respectful and conclusive way.Get familiar with those unreasonable arguments and get to understand them in order to be able to address them. One example is peoples misconception that we are trying to force churches to marry us against their stated principles, a lot of people think we have Civil Partnership and now we are trying to force people into allowing Church Weddings. We need to get the differences between those really clear in our own heads first and then be prepared to share that. Arguing or trying to convince people anywhere to vote in favour of gay marriage will need to be done without alienating the very people you are trying to convince by being too patronising, arrogant or dismissive of their fears. And that’s what people have is fears, they can be scared to make changes and may not vote simply to “leave well enough alone” it will be our jobs in conversations, with friends, online, with family to let people know we need this change and why.

As I've said, complacency will be the killer. As it is with an awful lot of votes in this country (elections included). I know many incumbent county councillors in my county who did not get re-elected. Simply because the impression was their seat was "safe" and some of their supporters did not bother voting. The same could happen here.

I know for a fact, I will be campaigning and canvassing for this hard. I will be doing my level best to get as much support for this as I possibly can and will be urging people on to make sure that they get up, get out and vote on it.

And as I've also said, I really, really hope that Sinn Féin put their full weight behind it. Even if they are only doing it for self-serving political means (trying to gain a key demo for the next elections; ie. the LGBT Community). If there is one group in Ireland that could possibly combat the organisation and social media presence of the Iona-mob, it is Sinn Féin. If they put a lot of effort behind it, that will have a huge bearing on the result. If they could get their voters out in support of it, it would be massive. However, the big question is, will they? I have a feeling they might, just to further boost their own "fighting for the downtrodden" image (a bit unfair of me; in fairness, they do do a lot of fighting for those that nobody else will fight for). Fingers crossed.

The mere fact, too, that all the other major and minor political parties (barring the right-wing loonies) support this is huge also. Fair enough, some individual members of the parties may not, but the official party line will be supportive. This includes Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Labour, The Socialists, The Greens, PBPA, etc. That is also huge. Deep in Ireland, there still runs feelings for the party that you're loyal to (particularly in rural Ireland). The fact that oul Farmer John might be anti-gay could be tempered by the fact that "his" party has said "Vote in support of it!". It's amazing how blindly loyal to the party line some people can be.

The cross-party support for this is massive. And I think that will go a long way towards negating the high-profile smear campaign that the "No" side will launch. The only question is, will they spend enough money and throw enough weight behind it to make sure that their support is actually effective support? Because the "No" side will undoubtedly spend a fúcking fortune on their campaign. The "Yes" side cannot be out-spent here. There needs to be a massive, high-profile "Yes" campaign that accentuates the positive and does NOT descend to the level that the "No" campaign will undoubtedly sink to.

I believe that the more vitriol and hatred the "No" side spews, the better the chances of the referendum passing. People will just get more and more uncomfortable with how they will try to dehumanise and demonise the LGBT community. This will swing more and more people away from "No" (hopefully). But this will have a detrimental cost also; how many young, innocent gay kids will suddenly find themselves in the firing line for these bigots? What mental toll will this take on them? How many young LGBT kids will suddenly start to see awful hate propaganda and start to possibly believe it? There is a chance that this campaign will get ugly and will have a killing effect upon the mental (and possibly physical, by-proxy) health of younger LGBT people? It does not bear thinking about.

Fingers crossed, this referendum will pass. If it does not, Ireland will be even further a pariah in the eyes of European countries that are far more progressive (see: Germany, France, Netherlands, Spain, UK, etc.) when it comes to this issue. We are at a great crossroads here. We need to take the right path.

Are there any links to the points GLEN were making at the Referendum event Joeytheparrot I cant seem to find any more on it than the bit you posted which I thought was very interesting. I would like to know more.

No idea. I quoted 99ers post.

Oh sorry how silly of me. Well 99er do you have any more info or links to suggestions from GLEN or to what was said at that get together.