Same Sex Marriage Referendum Mega Thread - MOD WARNING IN FIRST POST

HIB wrote: »

If I could make them my civil partner, I couldn't care less. That would let me claim their tax credits.

There's a big difference in perceptions when introducing people.

'This is my girlfriend - implies short term, not necessarily serious or permanent
vs
"This is my Wife - Implies permanent committed relationship
vs
'This is my partner - Implies business relationship or similar to boyfriend/girlfriend but more likely to be used by older people.

While it might not matter to you how you introduce your relationship, it does influence other peoples perception of your relationship whether they know it or not.

Wife/Husband are protected terms that are the highest level of commitment reserved for married couples.
Partner is not a protected term, Anyone can use it to describe any kind of relationship, romantic or otherwise.

late wrote: »

Those on the yes side telling us that the marriage of a man to a man or the marriage of a women to a women can be same as marriage of a man and a women are deluded. Marriage between a man and a women is the real deal and the way nature intended.

What does nature have to do with marriage? Or are you implying that homosexuality is not natural - even though all the evidence in the natural world says the contrary.

No matter how much these deluded politicians on the yes side tells us a same sex marriage is the same as a marriage between a man and a women, it is not or never can be or never will be seen equivalent, no matter how much we are been told it is.
Also the people will have no say if the yes win, when it comes to our politicians ligistating for surrogacy, there will again be a huge campaign from the yes side looking to allow surrogacy for same sex couples as they cant produce babies themselves. I believe we should not deliberately set out to produce children to be brought up without a mother and a father. This is sure to happen down the road if we vote yes. In special circumstances some children are reared by same sex couples, but we should not deliberately set out to make this the norm. Also it will be illegal for a teacher to tell children that marriage between man and a women is the ideal. If this law comes in it will cause more confusion for little children. Please think of the children and vote NO and don't be fooled by our politicians or those on the yes side.

Was that a sound bite from the RCC? Please don't go to church... think of the children.

I am not anti gay or anything like that but this is a step too far especially for children as I have said above, so I will be voting NO.

I'll think you'll find that you are.

LookingFor wrote: »

Chair of the Referendum Commission is on Morning Ireland at the moment, answering 'final questions' about the referendum, and being pretty clear:

"The referendum is about who may marry. It is not, in our view about surrogacy, it is not, in our view, about adoption."

"I have spelled this out."

"Will the referendum mean that all references to mothers & fathers have to be removed from laws?"

"No."

Its great to hear them now, but they should have played more of a part in the debate tbh. By the looks of things the No side could make any claims they want and not be challenged too strongly from the Referendum Commission.

frostyjacks wrote: »

"It is not, in our view about surrogacy, it is not, in our view, about adoption."

The fact that he's saying "in our view" leaves a bit of a question mark over things. Suggests it's open to interpretation.

Will you give it a fúcking rest!?!

frostyjacks wrote: »

"It is not, in our view about surrogacy, it is not, in our view, about adoption."

The fact that he's saying "in our view" leaves a bit of a question mark over things. Suggests it's open to interpretation.

It really doesn't. It's their job to make the facts known in an impartial way. They can't take sides, they are stating the facts of the Referendum. Simple as. The No side have waged a campaign of lies, misinformation and scare mongering.

frostyjacks wrote: »

"It is not, in our view about surrogacy, it is not, in our view, about adoption."

The fact that he's saying "in our view" leaves a bit of a question mark over things. Suggests it's open to interpretation.

Completely 100% wrong. But I suspect you know that really.

late wrote: »

Those on the yes side telling us that the marriage of a man to a man or the marriage of a women to a women can be same as marriage of a man and a women are deluded. Marriage between a man and a women is the real deal and the way nature intended. No matter how much these deluded politicians on the yes side tells us a same sex marriage is the same as a marriage between a man and a women, it is not or never can be or never will be seen equivalent, no matter how much we are been told it is.
Also the people will have no say if the yes win, when it comes to our politicians ligistating for surrogacy, there will again be a huge campaign from the yes side looking to allow surrogacy for same sex couples as they cant produce babies themselves. I believe we should not deliberately set out to produce children to be brought up without a mother and a father. This is sure to happen down the road if we vote yes. In special circumstances some children are reared by same sex couples, but we should not deliberately set out to make this the norm. Also it will be illegal for a teacher to tell children that marriage between man and a women is the ideal. If this law comes in it will cause more confusion for little children. Please think of the children and vote NO and don't be fooled by our politicians or those on the yes side. I am not anti gay or anything like that but this is a step too far especially for children as I have said above, so I will be voting NO.
The yes side also have a huge amount of money for their campaign, also apparently a huge amount of money coming in from the Sates etc. The no side have very little money. Where is the democracy in this?
The yes side have the help also of a very biased media. No balance at all.

It is interesting to see that the whole argument is based on the statement "marriage between two men or between two women just isn't the same thing and there is an end to it"

You do not explain in any way what you think those differences are, why you think they are important, and how they would influence anyone who is not, of their own free will, engaging in a gay marriage. I can detect no reason to vote no in your post thus far.

You then follow this up with a prediction: if this goes through, then gay people will come looking for babies! They will demand surrogacy rights and adoption privileges!

Firstly, it is nonsense: you could just as easily predict that if we let infertile couples marry, this means they have a right to babies. It just does not hold water: people have the right to avail of adoption or surrogacy already regardless of their sexual orientation, but there is no right to reproduce attached to the right to marry.

If you feel that gay people should be denied adoption rights and that they should be barred from surrogacy arrangements, then you should go and campaign for a change in the law. We do not currently forbid gay people to do anything of the kind: in fact, it would probably constitute discrimination to do so and personally I think it is reprehensible, but hey, it is a free country.

However, it is not appropriate to use this as a reason to withhold marriage rights from gay people. It simply does not have anything to do with it.

You then go into some interesting territory:

Also it will be illegal for a teacher to tell children that marriage between man and a women is the ideal. If this law comes in it will cause more confusion for little children.

This is also not actually true: they can certainly continue to teach that their religion considers that an ideal. They can even continue to teach that they see homosexuality as a sin. We currently allow and have always allowed enormous leeway to religions and religious institutions. Did you know it is still legal for a catholic school to fire a teacher for being gay?

They will merely have to teach that gay marriages are allowed under the law... if they mention it at all. I don't think they currently do much to cover it anyway.

When all is said and done, there is no rational reason to vote no in your post if you remove the blatant untruths and unsupported opinions. There is just your gut feeling that it is wrong somehow. I think you need more than that to continue to refuse people what they consider equal rights in our society.

The_Minister wrote: »

Corinthians is taken as condemning homosexuality

Corinthians was written by St. Paul - a totally different dude from Jesus.

Paul was a believer in the end-times, he wasn't very keen on heterosexual marriage either since the thought he end of the world was nigh.

the thing about dietary rules like pork is, and someone may give a more informed answer, Jesus continued some rules and disallowed others.

Here is a more informed answer: Jesus explicitly states that he did not come to change the Law: Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

There are 600+ rules in Leviticus, still followed by strict orthodox jews (although without the stonings and executions for rule-breakers, obviously). For no textual reason whatever, Christians pick out the anti-gay rule, and ignore the vast majority.

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

It's something that must be asked in the aftermath of the vote, and that's the use of posters to mislead the public, to generate fear and concerns to ensure a certain vote from a wavering voter.
Some of the posters on the No side have been vile and disgusting, either lies or irrelevant misdirection or both, and even though the head of the referendum commission came out, in interview, and debunked them by explaining the vote and its context the No side as continued to trumpet this kind of material.
I would hope that we can see this kind of negative campaigning eradicated in future votes.

This kind of campaigning is nothing new and is going nowhere. We saw the exact same campaign of lies and misrepresentations for things like the Lisbon Treaty for example.

Ensuring balance, it seems, is far more important than ensuring quality of debate. People can say whatever they want. It can be factually totally untrue but that can't prevent them saying it.

At some point that has to change. At some point people should be told they are entitled to any opinion they want but if they are campaigning about something they need to adhere to certain standards. Matters of actual opinion are one thing, but things that are factual are not subject to opinion. And anything that is provably factually incorrect should be banned. All it does is confuse and muddy issues, which is exactly the point. At the moment our system encourages and rewards the spreading of ignorance and confusion. That's just wrong.

RobertKK wrote: »

That attitude doesn't win votes.

I don't want to win their votes. I want them to vote their conscience, and then have the Yes vote crush theirs, drive them before us and hear the lamentations of their women.