Monday, May 25, 2015
Did Jebbie Bush's Brother Offer to Officiate a Gay Wedding?
Jeb Bush's idiot brother George W. Bush seemingly keeps creating new issues that could hobble Jebbie's presidential effort. Besides the ghost of the lie and deception based Iraq War, now it seems that Dubya may have offered to officiate at a gay wedding ceremony - something that will certainly not resonate well with the Christofascist base of today's Republican Party. One can almost hear the shrieks from the "godly folk" at FRC and similar hate groups. The Washington Blade looks at the story. Here are highlights:
Despite his reputation for being an ardent opponent of LGBT rights and supporter of a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, former President George W. Bush sought to officiate over a lesbian wedding in 2013, according to a recent report in the Boston Globe.The article, published on Saturday, is on a newly constructed $1.4 million home intended for likely Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush at the Bush family compound on Walker’s Point in Kennebunkport, Maine. The construction of the home was initiated by Jeb Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, and mother, former first lady Barbara Bush.Embedded in the article is a paragraph on how when visiting Kennebunkport, Jeb Bush sometimes patrons H.B. Provisions, a general store owned by lesbian couple Bonnie Clement and Helen Thorgalsen, who married in 2013.As was widely reported before, the Boston Globe notes that former President George H.W. Bush made headlines when he attended their wedding in 2013. According to reports at the time, George H.W. Bush served as a witness at the wedding.But the article also reports something that has previously been undisclosed in the media: former President George W. Bush “offered to perform the ceremony but had a scheduling conflict.”
Some mornings, Bush drops into H.B. Provisions, a cozy general store owned by Bonnie Clement and her wife, Helen Thorgalsen (George H.W. Bush made international headlines when he attended their wedding in 2013; George W. Bush offered to perform the ceremony but had a scheduling conflict).
It remains to be seen whether George W. Bush’s reported willingness to officiate over a same-sex wedding will impact the potential presidential campaign of Jeb Bush.Last week, the likely 2016 candidate said ahead of a potential U.S. Supreme Court ruling there’s no constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Additionally, Jeb Bush said support for “traditional marriage” — code for social conservatives to mean opposition to same-sex marriage — is a “core American value” and important to ensure children born in poverty have a chance to succeed. A spokesperson for Jeb Bush couldn’t be reached for comment in time for this posting.
Memorial Day - How to Truly Honor the Fallen
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| Arlington National Cemetery |
On Memorial Day we honor those who died defending our country in the nation's military. As Wikipedia notes the holiday arose as follows:
Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for remembering the people who died while serving in the country's armed forces. The holiday, which is observed every year on the last Monday of May, originated as Decoration Day after the American Civil War in 1868, when the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans — established it as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. By the 20th century, competing Union and Confederate holiday traditions, celebrated on different days, had merged, and Memorial Day eventually extended to honor all Americans who died while in the military service.It is truly right that we remember those who gave their lives for defending the country. However, it is also right that we remember that some gave their lives needlessly in wars that should never have occurred but for politicians and generals who sought political gain and/or to satiate their egos or to justification for military spending. The most recent of such wars being, of course, the Iraq War fiasco. A war that was based on deliberate lies and misinformation by the Bush/Cheney regime. A war that Republicans for the most part refuse to admit was a terrible mistake that threw away thousands of American lives.
The take away for all of this? That if we truly honor or war dead, we should make we do not allow sleazy,dishonest politicians, the vast majority of which have no military experience and have no family members in the military to send more of our military to their deaths needlessly. As a piece in the New York Times notes, the current members of Congress have little connection to the military despite their swaggering and bellicose blather:
As for the current Congress, as the “PBS NewsHour” noted in November: “In all, 97 members of the next session of Congress will have served in the U.S. military. That means less than 18 percent of the new congressional delegation served in the armed forces.
[Only] 0.4 percent of the American population is active military personnel.”
Furthermore, we are moving toward a society in which the rich and powerful avoid service while those of fewer means sometimes see it as one of only a few options.
The American empire is dying, and the economy is declining. Dysfunction and disrepair define the sick status and mechanized failure of educational, medical and governmental institutions. One in 10 Americans take antidepressants, unemployment and underemployment soar, poverty blights and obliterates inner cities and rural villages alike, 45 million adults are functionally illiterate, and anyone with all but the lowest lucidity can see clearly that the political system operates as bribery for the highest bidder. Given that the top 1 percent own 40 percent of the wealth, it is likely that the extortionists who purchase political representation all shop at the same clothing store.I nearly lost a son-in-law in the Afghanistan debacle, so yes, this is very personal to me. We were lucky that he survived and has healed bodily and mentally. Far, far too many families were not so lucky. Meanwhile, think what might have been done with the $3 trillion squandered in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In an America suffering from increasing infirmity, anything that allows for denial of reality and comforts delusions of superiority becomes essential and central to the national identity. The United States military, with its garish parades and idolatrous rituals of uniform and flag consecration, functions as the final and fading echo of its country’s creed: “We are better than the rest.”
The real religion of America is America, but as the old gods of economic triumph, middle-class stability and cultural achievement begin to die, chances for sacrament become slim. Commentators and Senators were aggrieved to learn that one of America’s favorite ceremonial rites was nothing more than the slick synthesis of public relations and propaganda. The New Jersey Star-Ledger reports that from 2011 to 2014, the Department of Defense paid 14 NFL teams a total $5.4 million, while the National Guard paid 11 teams $5.3 million, to “honor America’s heroes” before football games, and during halftime shows.
[R]arely have I seen any opening or halftime ceremony include veterans in wheelchairs or vets struggling to stand on prosthetic limbs. Living and breathing human beings who come to represent the cold and callous consequences of war are not convenient symbols for American greatness or military adoration. The fact that what many citizens believed was an attempt to celebrate sacrifice was merely moneymaking stagecraft captures the vacuity of “support the troops” slogans. The fact that on the stage those veterans who most need attention and assistance – the wounded, traumatized, homeless – almost never appear captures the hypocrisy.
[W]ar is now an abstract pride stimulator for Americans. All the troops are heroes, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are fought for freedom. It is fun to watch Chris Kyle kill people. The long-term consequences of death, and destruction of American and Middle Eastern lives are irrelevant. War, like football, is now entertainment, and the entertainment is an anesthetic for the pain of American failure. As the late George Carlin said, “We can’t educate our young people, can’t feed our poor people, can’t take care of our old people, but we can bomb the shit out of your country.”
Joseph Stiglitz calculated the cost of the war in Iraq at $3 trillion. The war in Afghanistan’s bill totals $1 trillion. As the cruelty of American foreign policy makes more veterans with disabilities and psychological trauma, it is medically and morally necessary to continually increase funding for the VA.
Save for Dwight Eisenhower’s too little and too late farewell address in which he warned of the dangers emanating from the “military-industrial complex,” few national officials, Republicans or Democrats, have shown a willingness to confront the cannibalistic Pentagon. So, it proceeds to eat through all the money and resources that might otherwise go to quaint, weird things like schools, hospitals, libraries, trains, buses, and bridges.
If Americans were not so easily frightened by Muslim monsters underneath the bed, and not so eager to celebrate itself with a vision of military supremacy, it might exert enough political pressure on Washington to truly memorialize its dead soldiers by committing itself to not making any new ones. Instead America will settle for bloated and bombastic tribute ceremonies at football games. The Department of Defense is cynical and savvy enough to take advantage of the apathy and ideology of Americans. Otherwise, they would not have offered the NFL millions of dollars.
Sunday, May 24, 2015
The GOP’s Benghazi Summer
With its clown car of candidates and positions on issues that time has proven to be failures and/or that more and more Americans oppose, the sGOP has seemingly decided that the Summer of 2015 will focus on trying to damage Hillary Clinton with Star Chamber like hearings even though past investigations have found that the conspiracies so loved by the rabid dogs of the GOP base are unsubstantiated. Never let it be said that the GOP lets facts and objective reality get in its way. One can only hope that during the hearings it is repeated over and over again that the GOP had slashed funding for security at U.S. embassies and consulates across the globe. Here are highlights from The Hill:
Welcome to the GOP's Benghazi summer.
After being hammered for months by Democrats for moving at a “glacial” pace, the GOP-controlled House Select Committee on Benghazi is picking up the pace.
“We are pedal to the metal because we are ready to get this thing done,” said Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (Ga.), one of the panel’s seven Republicans.
This week the panel subpoenaed Sidney Blumenthal, an informal adviser to Hillary Clinton when she helmed the State Department, and who has since agreed to appear before the select committee by the requested June 3 deadline.
Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas) hinted that Huma Adebin, Clinton’s longtime aide and the vice chairwoman of her 2016 presidential campaign, could be deposed soon, too.
Earlier this month chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) issued an interim report on the panel’s first year of work that said he wants to interview 60 former and current Obama administration officials, including members of Clinton’s inner circle, about the circumstances surrounding the deadly assault that killed four Americans.
While GOP members insist they still need all the relevant documents to the attacks that occurred on Clinton's watch, the recent moves could blunt the criticism that they are slow-rolling the investigation to hinder her White House bid.
“We want to get this thing over with as quick as we can. I’m sure Mrs. Clinton wants to get it over as quick as she can,” according to Westmoreland.
Jordan said members are already in the process of coming up with the “most appropriate and best lines of questioning” for when Clinton appears before the select committee, something she has agreed to do though no formal date has been set.
The acceleration hasn’t been lost on Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the panel’s top Democrat, though he’s unsure where the sudden motivation has come from.
“I don’t have a clue. All I know is that they waited for a good while before even asking for documents and then they turn around and blame the State Department,” he told The Hill.
He took particular issue with the Blumenthal subpoena, a move that he called “heavy-handed” at the time.
Cummings said the panel’s investigation is “going down a road that leads straightway” for its original purpose — uncovering additional details about the conditions before, during and after the attacks — and is now “basically, get Hillary Clinton by any means necessary.”
TLC Pulls "19 Kids and Counting" from Schedule in Wake of Moestation Admission
Back last year when there were rallies outside the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Norfolk Division, as the Court considered the case of Bostic v. Rainey, among the anti-gay hate mongers outside the courthouse was now confessed molester Josh Duggar (pictured standing next to Victoria Cobb of The Family Foundation, one of Virginia's leading hate groups and enemies of equality for minorities of all races and sexual orientation). Duggar has admitted to multiple molestations of minors in the past and has resigned from his position with Family Research Council, another hate group, and adopted the usual Christofascist bullshit defense/faity tale that "I sinned, but God has redeemed me." Here's the line that made me want to grab a vomit bag:
I am so thankful for God's grace, forgiveness, and redemptive heart that allowed me to transform into a man of faith and testimony.
Joe Jervis has details on Duggar's disingenuous resignation letter here. How anyone with over a 70 IQ believes such crap amazes me. But, then again, studies have shown a correlation between low educational/intelligence levels and adherence to fundamentalist Christianity. Meanwhile, TLC seems to have finally recognized the reality that the Duggars and their family freak show are toxic and out of the sane mainstream. As Towleroad reports, TLS has pulled "19 Kids and Counting" from its schedule - hopefully, the move will be permanent. Here are highlights:
Wrote the network on its Facebook page:The hypocrisy of the Duggars, who have been active in opposing gay rights and denigrated LGBT individuals is stunning, given that Josh Duggar and his parents knew that he was a five time molester of underage girls. If anyone is a threat to families, it is the Duggars themselves.
Effective immediately, TLC has pulled all episodes of 19 Kids and Counting currently from the air. We are deeply saddened and troubled by this heartbreaking situation, and our thoughts and prayers are with the family and victims at this difficult time.Last November, a petition calling on TLC to cancel the show over the Duggars' "LGBT fear mongering" caught fire on the internet and amassed over 100,000 signatures.
The Party of White People”: How the Tea Party Took Over the GOP
I often bemoan what has become of today's Republican Party. I continue to believe that the GOP's lurch toward lunacy traces back to the rise of the Christofascists in the party, the beginnings of which I witnessed near the end of my time as a GOP activist. That cancer later morphed into the the so-called Tea Party movement, a movement that the mainstream media continues to fail to identify as largely the Christian Right hiding under a different label so as to not repel those not in lock step with the Christofascists' theocray agenda. Regardless of the name applied to the two movements, both were at first cynically allowed to infiltrate the Republican Party by the so-called GOP establishment that thought it could control the extremists of the movement. Time has shown that this conceit proved terribly incorrect. A piece in Salon looks at the process that allowed extremists and outright lunatics to capture the party. Here are highlights:
On the anti-intellectual fringe, the narrative about the Founders was taken up by absolutists and paranoids who supported citizen militias and the like. Yet even those not on the fringe supported the radical rhetoric. It was, in some sense, built into the movement. The logic of their argument—that conservatives were losing the country, that it had fatally departed from the Founders’ intentions, that the republican experiment required periodic revolutions to renew old values—suggested that extreme and uncompromising measures were necessary to restore the nation to the old ways.
The Republican leadership, by contrast, was made up of realists. Though establishment politicians had used similar revolutionary rhetoric often enough—since at least the time of Ronald Reagan—when it came to governing they recognized the limits of their power and the importance of incremental change. But with the Tea Party revolution, the rhetoric became harder to control. The conservative base had slipped its leash.
As early as August 2009, David Frum, a speechwriter for George W. Bush, warned that conservatives were playing with fire. “All this hysterical and provocative talk invites, incites, and prepares a prefabricated justification for violence,” he wrote during the angry summer recess. “It’s not enough for conservatives to repudiate violence, as some are belatedly beginning to do. We have to tone down the militant and accusatory rhetoric.”
Some commentators wondered if perhaps the Republicans had foolishly tried to ride the Tea Party tiger. It had been clear for some time that the Tea Party combined legitimate outrage over Democratic policies with more disreputable elements that tended toward extreme directions, a dialectic that the conservative columnist Matthew Continetti called “the two faces of the Tea Party.” One side sought to repair various “deformities” in American politics. The other, according to Continetti, was “ready to scrap the whole thing and restore a lost Eden.” One side was reformist. The other was revolutionary. One was responsible. The other was dangerous.
Unfortunately for the Republican leadership, the Tea Party seemed barely interested in governance. Tea Partiers wanted, above all else, a confrontation with the president regardless of the wisdom of the conflict. And because the 2010 freshman class was so large, Speaker John Boehner did not have a functional majority to pass bills without Tea Party support. That dynamic made Republican attempts to convert the posture of rage into actual policy initiatives difficult if not impossible.
[W]hat the Tea Party–led Republicans demanded—a massive cut to spending that would increase over time, a balanced-budget amendment that would permanently limit spending in the future, and the promise that these aggressive cuts would somehow balance the budget rather than creating recession and larger budget deficits—was unprecedented. There was no way that Obama could give even half of what the Tea Party faction demanded. So what would otherwise have been a routine maneuver in public credit of the United States. The Tea Party threatened to burn down the house in order to “save” it.
They [the Tea Party] professed to want to shrink government to unleash the capitalist system and they argued that not raising the debt ceiling would be a first step. But a default would have plunged the nation’s economy back into recession, which would have lowered tax receipts and massively increased the debt. And the default would have further raised the cost of borrowing, which would then further increase the debt. So not raising the debt ceiling as a first step in stopping the debt cycle would have, in fact, massively increased the deficit, added enormously to the debt, and thrown the nation’s economy into chaos.
[A]s the [20102] election returns came in, it became apparent how out of touch Republicans had become. Obama won in decisive fashion, 332 electoral votes to Romney’s 206. Even more disturb-ing—at least for Republicans—was the demographic composition of those who voted from Romney versus those who voted for Obama. Romney lost nearly every important demographic with one exception: 88 percent of Romney voters were white. In a nation that was turning increasingly brown, those numbers suggested crisis.
Watching the agony unfold, Sam Tanenhaus, one of the keenest of political observers, came to a disturbing conclusion: the Tea Party–led GOP was headed to the most extreme Jeffersonian position, that of John C. Calhoun prior to the Civil War. . . . Calhoun’s views on federal power and the Tenth Amendment became central in the emergence of the newly conservative politics.
The Jeffersonian argument about maintaining founding principles had degenerated into a Calhounian vision of state-sponsored nullification and retrenchment. “Denial has always been the basis of a nullifying politics,” Tanenhaus believed, but after the election it was obvious that “modernity could not be nullified.”
How would Republicans now respond? They could either abandon their form of antigovernance—with its genuflections toward the Founders, its simplistic solutions to complex problems, and its general tendency toward obstruction. Or the party would remain, Tanenhaus predicted, “the party of white people.”
As stated above, I believe that the Christofascists have been key in this move to make the GOP the party of white people. Look at all of the major "family values" organizations and you find two key things: (i) their leadership and rank and file members are lily white and only reach out to blacks and Hispanics when they want them (read black pastors in particular) to act as their trained circus dogs, and (ii) most are descended from the same roots as the segregationists of the 1950's and 1960's, who favored white "Christian academies" over allowing their children to mix with blacks in integrated public schools. Here in Virginia, The Family Foundation traces to the folks who supported "Massive Resistance" and uses "family values" pronouncements to hide it racist, anti-minority agenda.
The Growing GOP Primary Circus
The list of declared and still jockeying would be GOP 2016 presidential candidates continues to grow with some like Bobby Jindal - who just signed an executive order supporting anti-gay discrimination under the ruse of "protecting religious freedom (which may prompt travel bans on Louisiana) - going to extreme lengths to prostitute themselves to the racists, homophobic, religious extremist Republican Party base. The prospect for primary debates among these candidates is delicious to contemplate as the debates will likely be a competition of who can spew more batshitery to court the party base. A cynical tongue in cheek piece in the New York Times argues that, if anything, the circus nature of the coming debates should be encouraged, not that some of the lunatic GOP candidates will need much help in embarrassing themselves and the nation. Here are highlights:
[O]ne of the biggest challenges now facing America involves figuring out how the nine scheduled Republican presidential debates can be held without running afoul of local fire marshals.
As of now, there are about a dozen viable candidates and probable candidates in the field, and maybe another six or seven who could make a case they deserve one of the coveted lecterns at the debates. (And then there’s Carly Fiorina, George Pataki and possibly Donald Trump.) Where do you put them all? And, more to the point, how do you arrange the contestants in a way that is both fair to them and compelling to whoever bothers to watch? It is a logistical problem, to be sure, and also the logical consequence of a free-for-all environment where barriers to entry keep shrinking, both for the social-media-enabled peanut gallery that “covers” the campaign and the candidates who are running in it.Fox News, which is scheduled to host the first debate of the season in August, took a stab at solving the problem on Wednesday, announcing that candidates wanting to participate must “place in the top 10 of an average of the five most recent national polls.”
Mollie Hemingway, writing in The Federalist, proposed that anyone who is allowed on the debate stage must pledge they will not sign a book or television deal for the next two years. I like this idea, not because it is enforceable (it’s not) or because any candidate would actually honor the pledge for more than one second after he or she quit the race. I like it because it goes to the basic instinct for self-promotion that has glutted the race to begin with.
For many (or most) candidates, running for president is not really about having a serious shot at the White House; it’s about reaping the profile-enhancement of going through the process. . . . . It’s good for business; I’d venture that Rick Santorum, Herman Cain and Dennis Kucinich have bigger speaking, book and TV opportunities to show for their experiences.
No campaign ritual elevates the stature of an otherwise statureless politician more than the debate, which places him or her within spitting distance of more serious aspirants to the Oval Office. While an abjectly disastrous performance can fatally wound a serious candidacy (see Perry, Rick, 2011), for marginal candidates there’s not much downside; the price of admission is cheap and the payoff is potentially enormous.
We should worry less about doing away with the circus, and more about making the circus interesting. To that end — and since everyone else is offering them — I have a few suggestions:
Mix up the parties. Why can’t we just stick four or five leading Republicans on the same stage as Hillary Clinton and maybe a Martin O’Malley here or a Bernie Sanders there? (Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee could be alternates in case Hillary has a fundraiser or Bernie’s getting his hair done.) Cross-party debates are much more entertaining. You’ve got to figure Clinton will be an absentee punching bag at every Republican debate anyway; wouldn’t it be more interesting if she were in the room? The rest of the Republicans would go into a kind of afterthought bracket — call it the Jindal Conference — to battle it out live on C-SPAN.Allow the candidates to question each other. Please. Even better, empower a panel of Simon Cowell types to kill the contestants’ mikes whenever answers exceed 30 seconds, or simply become tiresome.Keep the candidates’ microphones open before and after the debates, and during commercials. Then put the audio online. The best part of C-SPAN interviews and live coverage is that they sometimes keep the audio feed alive after the main program is over — and you get to hear something that resembles a human being talking. Presidential candidates are more careful, but it’s inevitable that someone would forget and we’d get a scrap, at least, of authenticity.
Eliminate the live audience. This would spare everyone from having to hear the moderator admonish the various supporters against cheering. Or, better yet:Rile up the live audience. Instead of insisting on decorum, let’s treat this as the full-blown spectacle it should be. Encourage supporters to cheer. Serve booze, too. Including on stage.
Ireland Approves Same Sex Marriage by Wide Margin
Friday's vote on same sex marriage in Ireland saw more than 60% of voters voting "Yes" to approve same sex marriage. Less than 38% voted "No" and the opponents appear to have had a majority in only one county. The results of the referendum are a sharp rebuke to the Roman Catholic Church which seemingly is in a death spiral in terms of its influence and ability to control public opinion. There are many factors to the Church's decline and the shift in public opinion, but the aftermath of the sex abuse scandal and complicity of the Church hierarchy in it and a populace which is becoming far more educated with independent access to information. Education and easy access to information and knowledge are religion's true worse enemies.
I do not believe that the rights of any minority should be put to public referendum, as a piece in The Economist correctly notes:
The idea that the majority can legitimise the right of a minority is fundamentally flawed. In the words of Ayn Rand, the Russian-American novelist, “individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities.”
There are plenty of examples on how popular votes could have catastrophic impacts in societies if they were to be sought on minority matters. The obvious example is the issue of marriage between white and non-white people in the US.
That said, the vote does have that attraction of making it difficult for lying blowhards like Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage to claim that "redefining marriage" was forced upon the public. Moreover, if Ireland, a one time bastion of Catholicism, can move to support marriage equality, other nations may be more inclined to follow suit. The New York Times summarized the outcome well:
Here are highlights from BuzzFeed on the potential wider implications of the historic vote:
The opposition, aided by some Catholic bishops who campaigned for No votes, peddled the hollow arguments that have same-sex marriage opponents around the world on a losing streak. They warned that legalizing same-sex marriage would undermine unions between a man and a woman and argued that marriage has an inherently reproductive purpose.In a statement conceding defeat, the Iona Institute, the main opposition group, said it would continue to affirm “the importance of biological ties and of motherhood and fatherhood.” The absurdity of that statement speaks for itself.As soon as the referendum is ratified by Parliament, Ireland will join 19 nations that have legalized same-sex marriage — an honor roll that does not include the United States.
When historians write about the global LGBT rights movement, they will probably divide their timeline into “Before Ireland” and “After Ireland.”
Not only did the vote held Friday make Ireland the first country in the world to enact marriage equality by popular vote, but the Yes side crushed the No side by a margin of 25 points. The Yes campaign won with a message that was about far more than the rights of gays and lesbians, asking voters to cast their ballot for “a fairer Ireland” and “because marriage matters.” They succeeded in making it a referendum on what kind of country voters — the vast majority of whom are straight — wanted to live in, and they resoundingly chose one where gay and lesbian couples are part of Irish families just like straight couples are.
“Ireland can be the game changer,” said Mauricio AlbarracÃn, head of the Colombian LGBT rights group Colombia Diversa and a lawyer who has worked on marriage equality litigation scheduled to soon be argued before Colombia’s Constitutional Court. The vote, he said in a phone interview with BuzzFeed News, shows that “the historic tendency is support of marriage equality.”
What’s more, conservative activists agree at least in part, telling BuzzFeed News that this vote shows that their strongest arguments against marriage equality have lost their impact in key parts of the world.
“We’re losing the marriage battles — that’s the truth, especially in Western Europe,” said Ignacio Arsuaga, a Spanish activist who founded a global online campaign platform called CitizenGo. (Its board includes Brian Brown of the United States’s National Organization for Marriage.) “Our arguments are not reaching the majority of society. The majority of society just think in the terms that were promoted by the gay lobby: ‘This is a question of rights …and marriage is a human right.”
The vote was a “powerful clarion call” to decision makers around the world, said Evan Wolfson of the U.S. organization Freedom To Marry, which has been advising marriage equality efforts in several other countries. “The resounding affirmation of the freedom to marry across every demographic [in Ireland] … adds to the global momentum we have all created.”
This may have a special significance in countries like Italy. Now that Ireland has marriage equality, Italy is the only Western European country without any partnership rights for same-sex couples despite multiple court orders calling on parliament to create them.
The fact that Ireland is “considered one of the most Catholic countries in the region, makes this [vote] a very meaningful and historic step for Ireland itself and for the region,” he said. “In the past, when a pop vote was called on the rights of a minority, the minority lost,” he said. “The majority decided the minority’s rights had to be granted, and that was a huge step.”
Friday's vote was historic for many reasons. The message to the Catholic Church and other anti-gay churches is that the times are changing and either they drop their 13th century "natural law" arguments and embrace modern knowledge and science or run the risk of either becoming extinct themselves or, in the case of the Catholic Church, becoming a black, Africa based church. Part of me hopes these denominations opt for eventual extinction.
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