How will you vote in the Marriage Equality referendum? Mod Note Post 1

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

If a man and woman get married, it's generally prudent to consider what will happen if any children are born during the period that they are married. Because, mostly, that's what happens. Indeed, we can fixate on marginal cases of eighty year old women marrying.

Random point time:

2011 Census: There were 344,944 couples without children of which 261,652 were married while 83,292 were cohabiting couples. Total of 1,708,604. married couples.http://www.cso.ie/en/newsandevents/pressreleases/2012pressreleases/pressreleasecensus2011profile5householdsandfamilies/

Not a huge amount but hardly 'marginal'.


Also it might be 'prudent' to think they will have children but as it is not compulsory nor does it form part of the contract of marriage it a herring. A big red herring.

noway12345 wrote: »

I believe that children are best brought up the way they have been for centuries. It's apart of nature. You have a mother and a father. It's the best upbringing for kids.

This isn't having a go at single parents, homosexual parents or any other type of parents. They try to raise kids the best they can but that doesn't change the fact that a child is best positioned to prosper with having a male and a female influence.

I'm not trying to offend anyone, that's just the way I see it and there's many that agree with me.

Do you have a single piece of verifiable facts or statistics to prove this?

noway12345 wrote: »

I believe that children are best brought up the way they have been for centuries. It's apart of nature. You have a mother and a father. It's the best upbringing for kids.

This isn't having a go at single parents, homosexual parents or any other type of parents. They try to raise kids the best they can but that doesn't change the fact that a child is best positioned to prosper with having a male and a female influence.

I'm not trying to offend anyone, that's just the way I see it and there's many that agree with me.

That actually isn't the way children were raised 'for centuries' and different cultures had different ways - In Native Australian culture men had feck all to do with child rearing - that role was carried out by the mother and her sisters until puberty.

In Ireland until the Brehon Law was finally destroyed along with Gaelic culture in the 17th century children went to live with a foster family at the age of 7 and remained there until they became adults at 15 when they went back to their clann lands. Most boys went into fosterage and quite a few girls especially from noble families. It was an important mechanism for building alliances and maintaining peace.
Additionally, the Gaelic Irish tended towards a 'semi-nomadic' lifestyle so during Spring and Summer while the noble menfolk and the Kerns occupied themselves fighting and stealing other clan's cattle, the women, children and bretaghs would decamp to higher ground/islands etc with the clans herds.

So a lot of the children only remained with their biological family for seven years max and only saw their fathers for half the year. There was also no concept of illegitimacy and a mother 'named' the father of her child who was not necessarily her husband.


That was how the Gaelic Irish reared children from c2,500 BCE to c1650 - now that's centuries.

The current system was introduced to Ireland along with the English conquest. Ironic really as among the people who introduced it common practice was that the men were either at Court or off on military campaigns while their wives and children remained back at their Manor far far away from Court.


By the By - one doesn't need to be a mammy or a daddy to be an 'influence' or do you think lesbian couples (for example) shun male company and raise their sons (for example) among some monstrous regiment of woman????

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

Are you saying the law should provide for children being conceived within SSM, even though its clearly irrelevant?

Is it?

I suggest you have a look at the Children and Family Relationship Act then, and pay particular attention to the sections relating to AHR and guardianship.

(I'm on mobile at the minute so I can't source directly from PDFs, but I'm recalling from memory here)


Fcuk it, I'll save you the trouble - it's already been legislated for.

I will be voting yes as i believe is equal rights for everyone.

Funny how i have the right to make such a decision due to democracy which the Greeks pretty much founded and they had open "rampant homosexuality" as the bible bashers would say.

And for those who say it affects children, what about the fact there a paedophiles from a church who have been protected, children sent into forced adoption and women sent to work in like of Magdalene laundries.

At the end of the day there is bad in society everywhere, but if a gay couple can provide a stable, nurturing, loving environment for a child while maintaing the relationship status they are entitled to then they should have it.

GCU Flexible Demeanour wrote: »

AHR hasn't been substantially legislated for yet, but it may be.

http://merrionstreet.ie/en/News-Room/Releases/Govt_to_legislate_for_Assisted_Human_Reproduction_Associated_Research.html

However, that's still not a child conceived within SSM. That's a child conceived by one party to SSM, with external assistance.

Straight marriages, by and large, just produce children without any external mediation. That's a considerable difference.

Incidently, while making it clear I'm a no voter as I know how Irish people's minds work, I again say that this is not a reason for or against legislation for SSM. It's just pointing out there's a difference in the lived experience of SSM and most straight marriages.

Even the lived experience of infertility is different in the case of a straight marriage, as its a medical problem. Its not a medical problem in SSM.

If the referendum on marriage equality is passed, it will simply be 'marriage' with no distinction as to the sex of the parties involved, so how that couple chooses to conceive a child within their marriage, both heterosexual and homosexual couples will have the same access to AHR services as each other. From your own link -

Advances in assisted human reproduction (AHR) technologies have increased the number of treatment options available to those affected by infertility and subfertility including:in vitro fertilisation, gamete donation from third party donors and surrogacy where a woman, i.e. the surrogate, agrees to carry and deliver a child on behalf of another individual or couple and the categories of people wishing to access such treatments such as heterosexual couples, same sex couples, single people and people wishing to avoid serious hereditary diseases. Therefore, from a medical and social perspective, infertility and subfertility represent an important issue.

And AHR HAS been substantially legislated for in the Children and Family Relationship Act, which is why I suggested you look at it (your link is out of date already).

Your efforts to poison the well with your linguistic gymnastics are nothing short of pathetic tbh. You haven't a leg to stand on here and you're doing your best to confuse and frustrate people.

If your point is neither a reason to pass nor reject the referendum, then why bother trying to draw it out at all?