SSM why are you voting no?

LordNorbury wrote: »

So straightforward discrimination against a same sex couple is tolerable you argue, once certain unique circumstances have fallen into place?

You do realise the mother also has the right to say she does want the child to go to a same-sex couple don't you?

Or do you think that could never ever happen?

Funnily enough I know of a situation where not only did the mother want her daughter to go to a same-sex couple - her husband suggested it and they got in contact with a lesbian couple who had mentioned to the mother's sister they would like to adopt some day.

All four were present at the birth and the child was placed in her adoptive mother's arms first at the request of her biological parents.

Married couple not only want same-sex couple to adopt their child but ask same-sex couple to adopt their child - you might need to go lie down in a dark room for a while to recover from learning that.

languagenerd wrote: »

<snip>
And if one partner already had a child, for example, their civil partner cannot apply to become the child's guardian the way heterosexual step-parents can, even if they've raised them from a young age. THAT'S the only way this referendum affects children: a yes vote would give any children already in this situation protection and stability.

thats a question that I havent figured out.

Will existing civil partnerships be "upgraded" should a yes vote be introduced, or do they need to (re) marry ?

sunshine and showers wrote: »

Yeah, and Iona has never asked for or received American money. :rolleyes:

Why the hell would america fund IONA, that makes me mad.

222233 wrote: »

Why the hell would america fund IONA, that makes me mad.

Because they are actively anti-choice with regards abortion. And they want to keep the 'homeland' stuck in a cute wee Dev-inspired time warp.

There is no argument to voting No in my opinion.

MojoRisinnnn wrote: »

There is no argument to voting No in my opinion.

All the fathers voting YES are saying they are replacable by a women.
All the mothers voting YES are saying they are replacable by a man.

Does this make sense to you at all?

LordNorbury wrote: »

I do not have equal rights that are on exact parity with a woman, I've already explained this to you! I might have equal rights in society and in law, I might be an equal citizen in terms of article 40 of the constitution but there is a limit to how equal I can ever be to a woman, and what causes that limit is me being a different gender to a woman, so on that very simple basis, I can never realistically argue for the equal right that a woman has to carry & bear a child, to be made available to me, because in that regard, I will never have that right that a woman has! It's simple biology that you appear to be in complete denial about.

[snipped just to avoid a v long post]


That might sound extreme but as I said, I have the humility to accept that as a male, I will never have the right to bear a child, it's just simple basic biology. No amount of lobbying or me banging on about it or me going around bawling on live TV that I'm being "discriminated against" and that "I'm bring oppressed" and putting on the crocodile tears on the SixOne news, or asking Pantibliss to get up on stage and tell the world that I'm being treated as a second class citizen because I'm not being afforded my equal right to bear a child, a right that a woman has, will ever change that.

No woman has "the right to carry and bear a child". That's not a legal right. That's an ability, a bodily function, not prescribed by a court somewhere. Likewise, we don't have a legally-prescribed right to breathe, sleep, eat, excrete, walk, etc. You're not "being discriminated against" in that regard because no judge or government has decided that only women can have babies, that's a flawed analogy.

Marriage IS a legally-prescribed right or social institution, which is why we CAN consider it to be discriminatory and change it if we wish. Laws change all the time. The Constitution should be a living document that reflects the times we live in. It's also worth noting that the Constitution doesn't actually define "marriage" or "family" as it is.

You're against same-sex marriage, I understand that. But from your posts, you seem to be foreseeing some sort of armageddon where most marriages are same-sex, where children are forcibly taken from their biological parents and given to gay couples. That won't happen. Nothing will change for straight couples and their children. Nothing will change for 90% of the population. As for the other 10%: those gay couples already exist, they already cohabit and some already have children. They will just finally be officially recognised by society.

Genuine question: what do you think will happen on May 23rd if it's a Yes?

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Except in the Gaelic Brehon system it made no difference to children if their parents were married or not as there was no concept of illegitimacy, women named the father of their child who was not necessarily their husband, if the named father accepted (no records found yet of any refusals but this doesn't mean it didn't happen) the child was accepted into the father's clann and given equal (or preferable) status to his 'legitimate' children.

You might have heard of a chap named Shane O Neill? Well, Shane was the eldest surviving legitimate son of Conn Bacach Uí Neill first earl of Tyrone but there was another son - Matthew - whose mother had named Conn as the father when Matthew was around 10 years old who became Conn's heir to the Earldom. Matthew's son Hugh succeeded to the Earldom. Even if Matthew was Conn's son (and it's a coincidence that Matthew's mother suddenly remembered who the daddy was around the same time as Conn became powerful...) the earldom passed down an illegitimate line while there were legitimate heirs living.

In Gaelic Ireland marriage was about political alliances not biological inheritance or land acquisition - it was all about having a family-in-law to guard your back and help fight your battles. Nothing else.

If you are going to use what happened in 'most' societies as an argument it undermines your argument somewhat when the society our ancestors lived in were not among the 'most'... far from it in fact.

Nonsense, Gaelic Ireland was patrilineal and patriarchal. That means by definition your kinship is determined by your biological father and traced through the male line. Whether a particular child was the product of the mans marriage or outside it did not change the kin group the child belonged to. Non-biological children raised in a mans family had no automatic right to his inheritance unless specified. Marriage meant the same then as it does now, the institution by which resulting children are assigned to a male (or female in matrilineal societies) biological blood line. Recognising the parentage of children born outside the marriage only strengthens the biological link between the child and their natural father.