"Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex."
The vote count on that question, put to the citizens of Ireland in yesterday's referendum, is currently being live-blogged at The Guardian's Website, here. According to the most recent post, with more than half the vote counted, Yes is ahead, 62 to 38 per cent. So it's not even close. A leader of the No campaign admitted, almost soon as the first results were made public, that the only question was the final margin. In Dublin, Yes is receiving close to 75 per cent of the vote. In parts of the country where No was expected to win easily, Yes and No are running neck-and-neck. A few random observations about this surprising result (surprising, I think, not on account of which side won but on account of by how much):
1. Every Irish political party endorsed Yes. In Ireland, apparently, "conservative" means conservative, not divorced from reality.
2. On the other side, the Catholic Church was opposed, naturally. But, from a distance, the Church's opposition seems to have been muted, even perfunctory. Of course those at the top of the hierarchy had to be against. But I didn't hear of any videocassettes being sent to parishioners urging, on behalf of all that is Good and Holy, a No vote. I did hear that plenty of parish priests, instead of preaching against the referendum, only told worshipers to "vote your conscience." Which is what they would have done anyway. The Catholic Church was largely irrelevant and seems to know it. Diarmuid Martin, archbishop of Dublin, told a television news reporter that the result was "a wake-up call" and that "the church needs to do a reality check."
3. It's been said so often that one almost hates to repeat it for fear of being labeled a purveyor of the CW. Still, it is almost unbelievable how quickly public opinion on this question has changed. Homosexuality was decriminalized in Ireland in 1993. Maybe Mississippi is next for gay weddings!
3.5 The Nebraska state legislature voted last week to abolish capital punishment. So, within a few days, capital punishment ended in Nebraska and same-sex marriage begun in Ireland. I'm serious, maybe Mississippi is next!
4. My Irish wife is proud of her people. For as long as we've been married, I've been listening to her say, "Let 'em marry! See if they like it!" Best wishes to all of them. I was in Ireland once and my most vivid memory is of walking around in Dublin, sometimes stopping to look down at my tourist's street guide, but never for more than about seven seconds before I'd hear a friendly Irish voice saying, "Can I help you find your way?" I'm favorably disposed towards the Irish and they didn't make it harder to like them today.
5. The last votes have been counted and the final result is: Yes, 1,201,607; No, 734,300. In terms of per cent, that's 62.1 to 37.9.
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