There isn’t much political control from the church any more, and certainly not in terms of the government (we even shut down our embassy in the Vatican for a few years, our relations with them have been fairly frosty of late due to the child abuse), Labour are explicitly anti-catholic (though their support is pretty low, doubt they’ll have much influence after the next election). They certainly don’t have a stranglehold on anything. Rural Ireland still has a strong Catholic influence in terms of their political representation, but the only large scale influence it is having on politics would be with slowing down a few key reforms (and that’s all they’ll be able to do, slow things down), rather than directing legislation in general.
The main problems left would be with abortion and the church’s role in education, the current government has improved access to abortion a small amount (though the new law was far from perfect even for what it was trying to allow), and there were claims before they came to power that they would do something about removing the schools from their control, but nothing much happened there unfortunately.
I´ve never personally met anyone who was openly against same-sex marriage, mostly the opinion is along the lines of “why the fuck would I care who marries who”. To me it just shows what out of touch with reality, pathetic little stiffs those politicians who claim people would be “concerned about devaluing sacred institution of marriage” really are.
No, you’re absolutely right, and certainly self-affiliation with the Catholic church doesn’t mean they hold to all church doctrine (in fact, that’s part of what I’ve always seen as a characteristic of Catholicism - being highly willing to reject various bits of doctrine while still considering oneself a Catholic). It’s just that the survey I’ve seen indicates about a 70%+ “belief in God” stat for Ireland, making them one of the most religious states in Western Europe (compared to sub-20% numbers in some other countries), with the highest mass attendance of European countries. Which would make their Catholicism about as deep as it gets, in Europe at least. Which may not be saying very much. Of course, I’ve also read that Ireland is experiencing one of the sharpest rates of decline in religiosity of any country, so my statistics may be completely wrong due to being even slightly out of date…
Not ‘deeply-Catholic’ for a good while. True, dat. But I remember going out to County Clare back in the seventies. The local shops sold basic goods, and gilt-framed pictures of the Sacred Heart, and the Pope. They talked about ‘the troubles’ as though they were just something that happened, and would always happen. Back then, saying that Ireland would vote for same-sex marriage would be up the unbelievable end of science fiction.
Moral: try not to be as rubbish as your elders. It’s amazing what one more generation can do.
We don’t have the highest mass attendances in Europe, we’re definitely below Poland and Malta. Figures on the wikipedia page have us at 46% in 2008, more recent data from 2013 puts it as low as 34% (and 18% if you only count weekly attendance), which is in line with a lot of the rest of Europe, which hasn’t been declining as sharply (we were at 80-90% in the early 80s). Immigration is probably keeping the rates from declining even further.
Yeah, it’s amazing how quickly things have changed. I’m a child of the 80s, grew up in middle class Dublin to atheist parents and went to a non-denominational primary school and non-religious protestant secondary school, so was isolated from a lot of what people from rural and working class backgrounds at the time would’ve had to put up with.
Also note, not all Catholics are anti-gay. I can’t speak for Ireland, but in the US there are many Catholic congregations which are gay friendly, and anecdotally there are many gay priests.
My uncle is a gay Catholic and was/is active in the church. He has many musical gifts and so has many times lead the choir or played music for the church. I do know he had an encounter a decade or so with an anti-gay priest when he moved to around Chicago. But growing up in Austin seemed positive. And even in Chicago he had the support of the other church members.
In my experience it is the Baptist and Evangelicals that seem to have the most irrational fear and exclusion with gays.
I was once of the last people to vote last night. I was in the UK for a course all week, and had planned my flight home to get me here in plenty of time to vote. So when I got to the airport with a colleague, and she looked at the the board to see our flight was delayed by 90 minutes I nearly swore a blind streak.
I arrived in Dublin at 9.15 and walked into the polling booth at 9.55. Even though my vote wasn’t needed to win, I love my country and take my democratic responsibility seriously. A landslide victory with 60% of the vote is more democratic than one with the usual 30% (and interestingly the other referendum on the ballot only had a 39% turnout).
Dublin today had an amazing atmosphere, energised and positive in a way I’ve not experienced in a long time. We made history in so many ways this weekend and I’ve never been prouder of my country and my fellow citizens.
A number of prominent members of the Irish clergy supported the yes campaign. Archbishop for Dublin Diarmuid Martin said the Church needs a reality check today.
I’ve had tears of joy coming and going since like 9.45 this morning when the first reports of overwhelming yes results came in. One of my favourite aunts - a huge influence on my politics and my on activism was a lesbian. She lived in London with her long-term partner and their son in one of the most loving and fantastic families I’ve ever seen. She died about a year and a half ago and I wish she could have lived to see this. I voted yes for her and all my friends and family and colleagues who deserved the same protections and rights that I have just because my brain chemistry works one way and theirs slightly differently
Yeah, you might get ex-communicated from the church (or at least you used to), but in my experience it isn’t the Catholics pushing anti-sodomy laws still, but the Protestants and Mormons.
I don’t get why my country of Luxembourg’s rated so low with 43%. Homosexual marriage has been legal since January 1st and is completely equal to heterosexual marriage. Even our prime minister married his fiancé (both male) two weeks ago. Can’t get more accepting than that!
It’s more than just LGB positive laws. Looking at http://www.rainbow-europe.org/, Luxembourg does badly regarding trans* people. I would have legal issues with moving there, no matter how nice the people there are to me.
The Gender Recognition laws here are in the process of reform. I believe that is what the big failing on that map is for Ireland. Last I heard the bill was being amended in a way which would improve it greatly from the earlier versions. It’s a glaring inadequacy here but one that the legislature is actually committed to improve a great deal, though perhaps not quite what we would like.
It will also, yet again, sharpen the contradictions in this state that the state itself while funding education and health doesn’t always control it: the practice in hospitals and schools can be dictated by unaccountable boards often stuffed with relics. Extremist relics.
See why we have all those religious symbols in the schools that everyone votes in.
And the other really big cancerous failing: the equality act allows religious groups to discriminate in employment in order to protect their ethos. This is clearly in contravention of European law (ECHR is part of Irish law and can be pleaded in courts here) and is going to go sooner or later.
Ugh, either your example is contained to Ireland, in which case we can expect less reform elsewhere, or it’s universal in which case we can expect entrenched extremists to continue to pervert the course of progress. I see some really shit figures out there. Hopefully the acceleration of change can overtake these patently surmountable difficulties.
