[y66]

DUBLIN — Ireland became the first nation to approve same-sex marriage by a popular vote, sweeping aside the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church in a resounding victory Saturday for the gay rights movement and placing the country at the vanguard of social change.

What an historic day yesterday was for Ireland. This story in today's Irish Times titled "Exhausting, draining and life changing: the Yes campaign" describes how two pillar organisations for gay and lesbian rights, with some input from a handful of political and media specialists, built the most extensive and effective civic society campaign ever seen in Irish politics.

[helene_t]

Probably more than half of the voters were also voters back in the time when homosexuality was illegal.

On one hand I think this is too good to be true and wonder if gays have become the mascots of the west because putin, the Catholic Church, mugabe and our enemies in the middle east don't like them.

On the other hand, maybe gays are easier to tollerate than many other minorities because homosexuality doesn't correlate with a particular social stratum. Left handedness is also a lot less stigmatised than it used to be.

[Vampyr]

helene_t, on 2015-May-24, 05:48, said:

Probably more than half of the voters were also voters back in the time when homosexuality was illegal.

Quite, since this was as recently as 1993.

What I found particularly cool about this was that there was no absentee/postal voting, so Irish expats returned in their thousands in order to vote.

[kenberg]

helene_t, on 2015-May-24, 05:48, said:

On the other hand, maybe gays are easier to tolerate than many other minorities because homosexuality doesn't correlate with a particular social stratum. Left handedness is also a lot less stigmatized than it used to be.

An interesting analogy that had never occured to me. I was born left-handed (in 1939) and my mother went to some lengths to correct this defect. She was very proud of her success and described how she "painted" my left hand red (I am not sure with what) so that I could remember that was my Indian hand, not to be used. As far as I know, no such intervention was called upon to adjust my sexuality. The thought is more than a bit frightening.

If a poll were taken some years ago to guess which country would be the first to legalize same such marriage, [insert: See Rik's correction below. First to legalize by popular vote in a referendum] I doubt Ireland would have been at the top of the list.

I think that your "on the other hand" is about right. That's just a guess though.

[Trinidad]

kenberg, on 2015-May-24, 08:48, said:

If a poll were taken some years ago to guess which country would be the first to legalize same such marriage, I doubt Ireland would have been at the top of the list.

Ireland isn't on top of that list.

But it is the first country where the population voted by referendum to legalize same sex marriage.

A Dutch newspaper has a world map on its website (scroll to the middle of the article). For those who can't read Dutch:

Green: Same sex marriage is legal (now or will be soon)
Blue: Same sex marriage is illegal, but same sex partnerships can be recognized
Orange: Gay marriage is legal in parts of the country (USA, UK)
Red: Gay marriage or partnership is forbidden

(The map is from before the Irish election.)

A time line of legalization of same sex marriage can be found on Wikipedia.

Rik

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2015-May-24, 08:48, said:

An interesting analogy that had never occured to me. I was born left-handed (in 1939) and my mother went to some lengths to correct this defect. She was very proud of her success and described how she "painted" my left hand red (I am not sure with what) so that I could remember that was my Indian hand, not to be used. As far as I know, no such intervention was called upon to adjust my sexuality. The thought is more than a bit frightening.

The difference may be that handedness becomes apparent at a much younger age, which makes parents think it's possible to "correct" it, like wearing an eye patch can improve a lazy eye. I'm about 20 years younger than you, I don't recall lefties being stigmatized (maybe kids made fun of them, but kids will tease each other over practically any unusual trait).

Homosexuality is qualitatively different, since it relates to how a person behaves in society. No one worries that a left-handed teacher or scout master will pass on this quality to the kids he's in charge of.

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2015-May-24, 14:44, said:

The difference may be that handedness becomes apparent at a much younger age, which makes parents think it's possible to "correct" it, like wearing an eye patch can improve a lazy eye. I'm about 20 years younger than you, I don't recall lefties being stigmatized (maybe kids made fun of them, but kids will tease each other over practically any unusual trait).

Homosexuality is qualitatively different, since it relates to how a person behaves in society. No one worries that a left-handed teacher or scout master will pass on this quality to the kids he's in charge of.

Oh I definitively agree. I think the view about lefties (from my parents anyway) was mostly that it's inconvenient to be one so might as well correct it. I don't look back on it at all as a trauma, but I wouldn't have done it if either of my kids were left-handed. I just have a general caution against trying to fight against mother nature.

Trying to change someone's sexuality? No. Just no.

[Bbradley62]

My parents have 3 children; one is gay (me, 52 years old) and one is lefty (my 43yo sister). I distinctly remember my parents frequently taking the fork out of my sister's left hand at dinner and putting it in her right hand. Didn't work. Same with the pencil once she started (Catholic) school. When I came out to my parents (at 29) my father asked why I hadn't told them sooner. It was because I had no intention of spending my high school years seeing a church-recommended shrink, which my father conceded would have happened had I told them 15 years earlier.

When trying to explain things to people who ask, I have often compared orientation to handedness; they are not genetic, but they are somehow innate. (I also used to think people who said they were bisexual were really gay but not yet ready to admit it to themselves, but at some point I realized that I believe there is such a thing as being ambidextrous, so...)

[helene_t]

Actually, handedness is partly genetically determined: http://en.wikipedia....Genetic_factors

[kenberg]

helene_t, on 2015-May-26, 03:03, said:

Actually, handedness is partly genetically determined: http://en.wikipedia....Genetic_factors

This is a very interesting article. A question occurred to me after the following:

Quote

Although scientific papers published in 1989 and 1991 claimed that the life expectancy of left-handed people was nine years less than that of right-handed people, these findings were quickly discredited. The authors had examined the handedness and age of the recently deceased in California, and failed to allow for the fact that older people there were less likely than younger people to identify as left-handed

This "discredited" study was more than twnety years ago. I would expect that someone somewhere would have said "Ok, they sort of bungled it but it's an interesting question so let's do a better study.". It seems certain to me that there must have been subsequent attempts to study this leading me to ask what the results were.

The article fascinates me. I knew about such things as "sinister" coming from "sinistra" but there are many things in the article that never occurred to me. For example, violent societies have more left-handed people because being left-handed can be an advantage in combat because the right-handed opponent is accustomed to battling righties, and so there is an element of surprise, while the leftie is battling the a person of the usual persuasion.

I suppose somewhere there is an article about people such as myself who were born left-handed but were trained to be right-handed. Probably we are all nuts.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2015-May-26, 06:59, said:

This "discredited" study was more than twnety years ago. I would expect that someone somewhere would have said "Ok, they sort of bungled it but it's an interesting question so let's do a better study.". It seems certain to me that there must have been subsequent attempts to study this leading me to ask what the results were.

Assuming the studies were done, I'd guess they didn't find any significant difference if the results aren't mentioned.

It's not like the studies that discredited the vaccine-autism link, where it's been necessary to mention them often and loudly because the earlier results are so widely believed and people still act on the misinformation.