20 Comments on “Riyadh Khalaf's alternative look at Ireland's gay marriage referendum”

  1. But, why the need to adopt the word 'marriage' – which has always been used to describe the union between a man and a woman? Don't civil partnerships give gay couples the same rights anyway?

  2. Personally speaking, I know I have to get used to the idea of same sex marriages, just as I've had to become accustomed to accepting gay/lesbian relationships.  Thanks to medical & technological advances, procreation no longer has to be limited to a male/female sexual relationship, and there is a distinct blurring of the different gender types that can create a family unit. Although this situation can make our modern society fascinating, it can also be confusing and not completely accepted by everyone.

  3. This illustrates the real issue here. (in the reasons for some peoples resistance to the idea of Homosexual marriages).
    And that is that "Marriage" has had both legal and religious meanings.

    And the modifying of one, has an affect on the other.

    The fear – for whatever reason – is that the government is forcing religions to conform to what THEY say is acceptable. And that has a dangerous precedent.

    ^Which isn't the point.

    Personally – despite being a Christian – It doesn't bother me.
    Nor SHOULD it bother other Christians, in my opinion. But Should and are are different things.

    I think its sad that people are unable to consider a religious sacrament and a legal marriage separate things.
    If you asked a person, if Civil Partner ships, should be recognised in Law as equal to marriages, then most wouldn't have a problem. The words ""Civil Partner Ship" would become synonymous with "Homosexual Union" and "Marriage" with "Heterosexual Union".

    Why the two words NEED to be different is beyond me, but it sounds like a suitable compromise to me.

    My BIGGEST Problem however – with my own Church – is that we EXPECT religious freedom. We expect to be able to conduct OUR ceremonies as we wish.
    We have NO RIGHT to say that Other denominations, other faiths, other secular groups, or whatever CAN'T have a religious ceremony of their own.

    Say "The Catholic Church doesn't accept Homosexual Marriages" if you must. Its not right. But if you must. to say:
    "NO CHURCH should be LEGALLY ALLOWED to CHOSE to accept homosexual marriages, is another entirely. It is wrong..

  4. Same sex marriage has never bothered me, I think what people do in their private lives is their business and no one else's but when people are sued because someone refused to bake them a cake (this happened here in the UK), then that is crossing the line. As much as I am against discrimination, you turn yourself in to a discriminator by refusing to accept that not everyone agrees with you. Whether they are right or wrong is not the case because to you, you are right and to them they are right, by suing someone because of different beliefs, you are turning in to something in which you once disagreed with yourself, intolerant. Tolerance works on both sides of the fence, as soon as you stop being tolerant, you become no better than they are. Anyways, whatever your life style, if you are not hurting anyone then I don't see a problem and the main thing is that you are happy and don't let those who think differently than you get you down, life is too short for that.

  5. Gay Marriage is a little like Women's Boxing – viz-a-vis traditional victims of prejudice earning the right to batter each other senseless

  6. What most people outside Ireland don't know is that the Irish people have always been tolerant. The problem has been the Catholic hierarchy and cowardly politicians who would not accept this. In the 1960s there were openly gay bars and people in Dublin and it was not a problem.

  7. As an older "out and proud" Irish gay man living in the UK, I was delighted to see equal marriage being passed into law in my native Ireland, with a huge yes vote from my home County of Meath in Ireland and many ordinary Irish people supporting us Irish LGBT people – I had come home to Ireland in the run-up to the referendum and many people in my home village were wearing the "Yes" badges, which I found most heartwarming, compared to the Rural Ireland that I had left some years before, where it was once a big taboo to even mention anything even remotely related to being LGBT – had I been able to come home later on, I would have voted "Yes" – Riyadh K did an excellent job with this video and he should be rightly proud of the success that he has helped to achieve in his campagain for marraige equality back home, where even our Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar is also an out gay man, which makes me so proud to be Irish and gay

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