The Referenda on Marriage and the Presidency this May 22nd.

Before I begin to make any type of argument for or against both proposed changes to the Irish constitution, I want to reflect on why we are being shepherded into the ballot booths to begin this particular procedure at this particular time by this particular government.

Why hold a referendum when the same outcome could have been achieved through legislation?

Why now?

....and why two issues which, outside of the hype from both the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ camps wouldn’t register on anyone’s priority list for political changes to Ireland in 2015?

The legislation question is the most important to me.  This is an unpopular government, yet it is a government with sufficient votes to have comfortably updated the various acts relating to marriage and relationships including child rearing to accommodate the new reality of family structures in Ireland.  Why haven’t they gone down this route?  Why haven’t they tied their progressive colours to the mast?

The only answer I can find is that they understand that to polarize their constituencies would go against their own rational self interest.  Simply put: they believed that they would end up losing votes in a general election.  To save the cost of a referendum to the exchequer in a slowly ‘recovering’ economy would have been the prudent choice but our politicians haven’t moved one millimetre away from self interest no matter how they spin it in the media.  So, the gnarled, divisive work has been left to the general public to get the politicos off the hook.....again.

We just don’t do ‘statesman’ in Ireland.

The timing question is also sadly revealing.  

Why is this government going to the polls on May 22^nd 2015 after so many years being satisfied with a constitution so obviously biased in favour of Irish Catholic life that it barely constitutes as a Republican document under international law? 

A constitution is a living document, it is the ‘how to’ manual for a people which defines their identity and custom to the people living under its declarations and to the wider world.  Ireland’s constitution, as drafted and amended by successive governments has undergone several changes over its lifetime, many changes were desperately needed  but had to be enforced upon our governments by the wider European community as conditions for entry into the lucrative European trading market.

Believe me, without Senator Norris’ brave civil case and former President Mary Robinson’s sterling work on decriminalisation for gay people and their sexual relations we would still be reading news reports about grievous assaults and murders named ‘gay bashing’ occurring in our parks and back alleys.  Only last week a young man with learning difficulties was chased down like an animal and badly wounded by the same kind of feral gangs who killed and maimed gay men and women during the 70s, 80s and early 90s.  

Disabled is the new queer, it seems.  

Our constitution has very little to say about those commentators and pundits who continue to spread hatred against ‘different’ people.  Now THAT’s an amendment I would love to have a hand in drafting.

Why are we being brought to the polling booth near to the end of the life of this government?  Well, call me a cynical so and so but I am convinced that this very necessary and affirmative question on the expansion of marriage as a civil contract to all of Ireland’s adult citizens is nothing more than a lightning rod for the parties in power to better judge the mood of their electors. 

You read that right:  The struggle for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people to enjoy equal legal status as citizens which has rumbled since the sixties is now culminating in 2015 simply to gauge how angry the electorate are.  People’s lives are being used as bait to draw the sting of the inevitable backlash against austerity.  It really seems that cynical to me; I find this government devoid of all sympathy for anyone outside of Dobby.   They’ve deliberately chosen to put this positive step to the people at their most unpopular moment in their political history since WWII.

A side point on this referendum is that the convention on the constitution sat from Dec 1^st 2012 until 31^st March 2014 and proposed these two amendments among some other doozys.  We took eighteen months to come up the following agenda (Source Wikipedia).

The establishing resolution set the following agenda items:

1. reducing the presidential term of office to five years and aligning it with the local and European elections;

2. reducing the voting age to 17;

3. review of the Dáil electoral system;

4. giving citizens resident outside the State the right to vote in presidential elections at Irish embassies, or otherwise;

5. provision for same-sex marriage;

6. amending the clause on the role of women in the home and encouraging greater participation of women in public life;

7. increasing the participation of women in politics;

8. removal of the offence of blasphemy from the Constitution; and

9. following completion of the above reports, such other relevant constitutional amendments that may be recommended by it

Looking at that agenda, I am astounded that we bothered at all to have such a bland convention at all.  This historical forum was used for nothing more than spring cleaning internal Dáil business. We need to ‘encourage’ women to get out of the home and into the House and to remove the offence of blasphemy from the constitution....really?  REALLY??!!!

In a time when people are resorting to kill themselves over crippling and punitive interest demands from banks effectively owned by the taxpayer; when people with incurable, disabling and agonising conditions are seeking to kill themselves rather than suffer more cut backs and losses of support and their carers run the risk of imprisonment  for aiding them in this choice; when historical and current evidence reveals widespread rape, assault and cruelty towards vulnerable people and children effectively sanctioned by the State; when the government’s own principal investor has been caught with his hands in our collective till again and again as well as having his debts to state owned banks effectively ‘written off’  - we are concerning ourselves with such nonsense as appears on this list?

Just how many idiot wives and daughters are there out there among the legions of cronies of the main parties that they need to have their political participation ‘increased’ by a constitutional conference? 

Just so we’re all clear:

·         Romanians currently have a vote at their Embassy, thus Romanians have more mandatory powers than the Irish.  Do we really need a referendum on this? Just extend the vote.

·         The presidential term of office being five, seven or ninety years will have no effect whatsoever on our economic, social or diplomatic status. 

·         A president under the age of thirty four (or thirty five for gaelgóirs) will still not be able to start a war with Russia or the US.  It’s a purely symbolic role.

·         The Dáil’s electoral system, like the boundary of constituencies, will forever be at the whim of the governing party/ies so don’t even go there.  That’s never going up for voting on.

·         I’m getting to same-sex marriage, honest.

·         When has a woman in Ireland ever been prosecuted for getting a job and neglecting her ‘duties’ in the household?  I mean, when ever?

·         How does one increase the participation of women in politics using the constitution as a means?  Tax quotas?  Legal compulsion?  Conscription into local committees?

·         Blasphemy against whom?  The concept of God is interchangeable with each religion/cult.  Doesn’t that mean that EVERY religion is inherently blasphemous to another religion?

·         If the above is what the convention on the constitution defined as ‘relevant’ please, Chairperson Tom Arnold, pass that dutchie over to me!

OK, ranting over.  We are going to the ballot box to approve two amendments to our (very wonky) Constitution.  The first is the ‘Tá’ and ‘Níl’ on the state’s definition of marriage.  Here’s the wording:

‘Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex’.

So that’s it....Marriage (the state recognised contract) may be contracted in accordance with law (children, goats, sheep and inanimate objects not eligible) by two persons (apologies to all Peshwari tribesmen, Malian Millionaires, original Mormons and Donald Trump) without distinction (we don’t care) as to the genitalia extant or otherwise between their legs. Hermaphrodites rejoice!

We live in a state which is constituted as a Republic and therefore that means that each citizen enjoys the same level of state sanctioned rights and responsibilities as every other citizen under the law.  If anyone doesn’t want this to be the case and wish somehow that one group of citizens have less rights, protections and responsibilities under law then they may seek out another state which isn’t a Republic.  Ireland is still dragging its heels on this painful road to recognising the ‘different’ people as equal citizens and I will be voting (through gritted teeth)’Yes’  to ensure that this long overdue amendment passes.

As for the minimum eligible age of the president....ask Simon Cowell; it sounds like a reality show in the making.