darkSpyro

http://www.irishtimes.com/news...eland-1.2223646

I unfortunately didn't get a chance to register and vote (with a YES vote of course), but this is great news.

This will make Ireland the first country to legalise gay marriage due to popular vote.

Coolio.

Fantastic news.

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http://www.independent.ie/iris...d-31238126.html

Sorry for the bump, but it's official - Ireland says a resounding YES to gay marriage!

While it hasn't taken effect just yet, the votes are in, so the appropriate bills will be passed.

Truly a historic day today, for the entire world.

HOOORAAAAYYYYSIES FOOORR GAAAYYSIES!

As a bisexual Irish American, I am Proud!

Wonderful news indeed! ~

Unfortunately, I live in a most seclusively rural area in Ireland with most people there being against it. My own dad says I can't be a Catholic if I support gay marriage. The local priest demonises the referendum, as if homosexuals will come and grab away children from families, while acting like he's the good guy.

Ireland has gone through some terrible things for a long time. Ireland under British rule, the great potato famine, the War for Independence, the Catholic Church being abusive towards women and children, patriarchy, domestic violence and The Troubles but THIS? Apparently progress is the worst thing to happen to Ireland. Becoming part of the European Union, the pound/punt becomes the euro and now homosexuals being allowed to marry under the eyes of God.

These are the same people who think Brendan O'Carrol's Mrs. Browne's Boys are funny. The fundamentalists that defined this country have been traitors to this country all along. The white between the green and gold represents peace.

That's good to hear.

I think the next step ought to be making marriage a completely private affair that nobody has a role in officially defining.

Quote: Robo-Spyro

I think the next step ought to be making marriage a completely private affair that nobody has a role in officially defining.

There has to be some laws on marriage, or else an 80 year old rich man could literally buy a marriage to a 12 year old girl. Stuff like that was rampant in Ireland in the 1950's.

Quote: sonicbrawler182

Quote: Robo-Spyro

I think the next step ought to be making marriage a completely private affair that nobody has a role in officially defining.

There has to be some laws on marriage, or else an 80 year old rich man could literally buy a marriage to a 12 year old girl. Stuff like that was rampant in Ireland in the 1950's.

Such a guy could say he's married that to that girl all he likes, but he wouldn't be able to make it mean anything in the legal sense, like anyone else, but him trying anything on her or forcing her into the relationship would be a different story.

That's what I mean, in the 1950's, "match-making" was a rampant practice in Ireland - there were people who would arrange actual marriages for money, and these marriages were both legally recognised as OK and were given the church's blessing. This practice was abused and these match-makers would take a young girl from a poor family and marry them to a retired rich man, often times with the families consenting to it because they needed money, and they would basically guilt trip the young girls into doing it. This resulted in the girls often never seeing their families again, and becoming work & sex slaves. The men marrying these young girls were most often old, retired rich men, who would pay a large sum of money to both the family the girl comes from, and the match-maker.

There needs to be some laws dictating marriage, as it is a legal contract to begin with.

You raise a good point, but we could still have laws in place to prevent such abuse without necessarily taking a stand on what marriage is. Even with marriage the way it is, kids can still be blackmailed into leaving their families with sex traffickers. That kind of thing isn't legally recognized now, and neither will it be legally recognized once marriage is made private. Basically, it'll just be a word people use for each other to define how they understand their relationship, like friendship. You don't have to sign any contracts to be someone's friend, and being their friend doesn't give you the right to abuse.

Marriage has always been a legal thing though. That's how it started, and that's how it will always be. When marriage was first conceived, it wasn't even about love, that was just an element people personally added to it. Even today though, many marriages don't involve love. Marriage has always been merely a way to bind two different families together, so that finances are shared, legacies are carried on, etc.

If you and another person love each other very much, but don't see a need to get married, then you don't. Love is a superfluous element to marriage. Marriage has always been a legal mechanism first and foremost, though, and that's never going to change.

Can't be certain of that, since many things we expect not to change eventually do. Values and social structure have made quite a shift since we first had marriage, but I do think it would be improbable for marriage to no longer be tied down to tradition, law and finance with the current system of family and economics in place, but that would be for another discussion, since we wouldn't want to get too off-topic, but I appreciate the time you gave to the conversation.