March 8th - What’s your vote? **Mod Note In Post #677**

Most folk, and almost assuredly most who are voting in this referendum, will be married folk who will retain all the rights and obligations that they would have had prior to said referendum. Nothing would change regarding this.

Wrt carers, at one end, very little changes beyond removing the onus of one specific gender to provide care in the home, and at the other end, as what seems to be the AG's impression, the state will have greater responsibility in protecting the rights of those who need help in law. Hard to see how that is a bad thing, nor is something that affects most voters.

For a lot of people voting, the driving factor for a No vote seems to be to give the government a kicking rather than being all that opposed to the new law.

Voted Yes to the 39th Amendment and No to the 40th Amendment.

Yes to the Family Amendment because I didn't feel the negatives outweighed the positives. In particular I heard some examples both in the news and from a work colleague of family setups which have been at least partially disenfranchised because marriage is recognised over and above other stable and meaningful relationships. I wish the wording was stronger, but I think ultimately the greater good is achieved with it than without.

No to the Care Amendment because it takes a starting position of effectively no constitutional reference to care at all, which allows statute to define it, and instead muddies the waters with the word "strive". I do think there has been some misinterpration of that word - it is a strong one and I had to look up the definitions to find it is in fact a much stronger word than "endeavour", which was touted as an alternative. However I also read that the legal advice around the word was that a court may struggle to rule on it in the way I think the disctionary defnition is intended and instead lean towards a more lenient interpretation. I also watched Senator Tom Clonan, who has a son requiring care, give a couple of impassioned arguments against the amendmenent. I've read Senator Clonan's columns in the Journal for some time, mainly on military or defence matters, and always found his narrative insightful, balanced and logical. I gave a lot of weight to his view which I have respected for some years, and he is for sure more knowledgeable in this area than I am.

I also felt it didn't adequately address reccomendations of the Constitutional Convention which was the below and which I felt reflected two entirely seperate issues:

"Make Article 41.2 (on the role of women) gender-neutral to include other carers both ‘in the home’ and ‘beyond the home’.

The State should provide ‘a reasonable level of support’ to carers."

All things considered I felt this amendment opened the door to too much (more) ambiguity as to the state's responsibility regarding care, was essentially half-baked, didn't necessarily represent an improvement on a zero reference to care, and needs wording which is much less open to interpretation.

I don't feel that's a reasonable logic upon which to base a vote in a constitutional referendum.

The Government that put the question may be incompetent, that doesn't mean their proposed answer to the question is. At the local, European, Presidential elections - sure, have a proxy vote against the governement of the day - but the constitution is our fundamental law and has to be judged on its merits alone.