Gay marriage ireland

Tiernan points out that the passage of the Children and Family Relationship Bill — even though problems with its executive would be revealed the next year — made the referendum question simple, a yes or no vote on equal marriage. Though, as a campaigner for marriage equality in South Carolina, I was familiar with many of the general arguments for and against, I found a couple of arguments of political reciprocity and historical analogy specific to Ireland instructive — and maybe a little surprising.

With a series of laws banning many forms of discrimination, civil partnerships in place since , and legislation protecting the rights of same-sex families and their children in early , many of the appeals that drove marriage equality campaigns elsewhere hospital visitation and medical issues, custody and family recognition, inheritance and tax status, indeed all the benefits and rights that accrue to two people when they are legally married were in some ways beside the point, even as they remained part of the personal stories that saturated campaign messaging.

Return to Year in Review. Tiernan is also clear from the outset that this is not simply a celebratory narrative of inevitable progress. A referendum on amended the Constitution of Ireland to provide that marriage is recognised irrespective of the sex of the partners.

As an American reader who thinks a tabled motion is a postponed not a proposed one, I kept stumbling on the repeated reference to motions being tabled. In addition, she devotes some attention to the work of the anti-marriage campaign, primarily their messaging and the prominent organisations, though I honestly wanted more.

She will not gloss over the negative elements; they are part of the story. This makes sense, of course, since marriage is a legal and legislative issue and a political campaign is a political campaign. She opens the book with a global timeline of marriage equality, , and with a chronology of key events related to the Irish campaign, beginning with the decriminalization of male homosexuality and concluding with the extension of marriage equality in Northern Ireland, effective on 13 January You will see every relevant legal or legislative step, including the foundational lawsuits of Ann Louise Gilligan and Katherine Zappone, who had married in Canada and sought recognition in Ireland, and to whom Tiernan devotes an early chapter.

They pointed to the huge voter turnout, especially young voters and migrant voters returning home to vote. This text may be archived and redistributed both in electronic form and in hard copy, provided that the author and journal are properly cited and no fee is charged for access.

In a discussion of the conservative organization Mothers and Fathers Matter, Tiernan also smartly reminds us that, in Ireland, the same key figures keep showing up in both the LGBTQ campaigns and in those that oppose them. Tiernan frames her history with useful paratextual materials and with critical context.

Soon after, pundits and scholars began to explain and analyse the vote. On May 22, , Ireland made history as the first nation in the world to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote. Tiernan is careful to trace the viability, at times fragility, of legislation as it was grounded in the strength of political parties and the rise and fall of coalition governments.

It is about a change in public policy and the political movement that made that possible, more than it is about the LGBT lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, and more than it is about cultural and social evolution. The number had fallen to in In , Ireland made it into the top five destinations for gay honeymoons, and it is also considered to be one of the safest destinations for holidays for LGBT tourists.

Discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is also illegal, and gender changes are legally recognized without the need for surgery. Ireland has officially passed the same-sex marriage referendum with million people voting in its favour.

It is worth noting that the vote was, in some way, simply about equality — equal citizenship for gay and lesbian people, their families and children. Even as the measure was endorsed by celebrities, national leaders, and the political parties, the movement was driven by door-to-door campaigns and the insistent use of personal stories.

Of the 22, marriages which took place in , 1, were same-sex marriages. She is also quite good at recognising how certain elements or issues emerge from particular contexts, some obvious, some not, though she does not always explicitly signal the connections she is making. While marriage equality has been achieved in other nations either through judicial decision or legislation, Ireland held a national referendum to change the language of the constitution, which they did by a 62 to 38 percent vote.

These are valuable examples of the messaging of both sides, as well as historically important, given their prominent appearance in the closing days of the campaign. The result was confirmed just before 7pm on Saturday although the result was clear. I emphasize political movement because this book leans toward a statist and organizational history of change.

As a literary scholar, I wanted more cultural context, but it is clear that is not the book Tiernan set out to write. I know better, but every time I saw MFM, I kept thinking it the acronym in personal ads for a three-way! Ed Madden Views: Same-sex marriage has been legal in Ireland since 16 November [1].

In May , Ireland became the first nation to legalize same-sex marriage through a popular vote. In early debates about civil unions, the Irish Human Rights Commission argued that Ireland was required to introduce civil union legislation under the Good Friday Agreement, which stipulated that Ireland was responsible for guaranteeing human rights equivalent to those in Northern Ireland, where civil partnerships for same-sex couples had been available since What complaints I have are minor.

Though these community rifts became less visible and less relevant after , Tiernan recalls their importance to the formation of the campaign. [2]. Indeed, I would highlight those first two chapters on Irish historical contexts and the Zappone and Gilligan court challenges as critical historical context for the campaign.

Maybe, though, in the narrative drive of historical detail, these chapter titles are meant to remind us that these facts add up to something bigger than names, incidents, dates, places.