Landslide For Yes!

42 out of the 43 constituencies voted for accepting same-sex marriage in the Irish referendum today! Only the constituency of Roscommon-South Leitrim voted "No" with a little more than a thousand votes.

What a wonderful and marvelous day this has been! And for many European gay men the fun continues today with the finals of the European Song Contest.

However my heroes of the day are our straight allies in Ireland, this song is for you wonderful people!

Thank You, Our Irish Straight Allies!

As Rachel Maddow, the television host of the MSNBC has said: “Here’s the thing about rights – they’re not actually supposed to be voted on. That’s why there’re called rights.”

But in the case of Ireland there was a definition of marriage written into the constitution, so to have it changed there was a constitutional requirement to put it to a ballot of the Irish people.

And according to all analysts the outcome is already clear, based on among other things by the huge voter turnout and the fact that even usually conservative constituencies have voted Tá/Yes. The only question now seems to be if any of the 43 constituencies will return a Níl/No-vote.

You can follow the counting here Irish referendum - Results by constituency. From there you can click on the detailed listing on the upper left of the page.

An Irish Cabinet minister, Leo Varadkar, who came out as gay at the start of the government's campaign, said: "We're the first country in the world to enshrine marriage equality in our constitution and do so by popular mandate. That makes us a beacon, a light to the rest of the world of liberty and equality. It's a very proud day to be Irish."

I could not agree with him more and would like to thank all our wonderful, sexy, beautiful, amazing, wonderful, marvelous, awesome, wonderful, amazing, beautiful, wonderful  and down-right sexy straight-allies in Ireland! I love and adore you all! 

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Picture of the Day - 354

"Words mean nothing when your actions contradict" by Sunny George

If you wish to see more of Sunny George's photography, please visit his Flick photostream here.

Picture of the Day - 353

"light" by Jenalynn

If you wish to see more of Jenalynn's photography, please visit her Flickr photostream here.

The Irish Referendum

Tomorrow Friday, May 22, the Irish electorate will take to the polls to vote on the Marriage Equality Referendum.

The electorate will be asked whether or not they approve of a Thirty-Fourth Amendment of the Constitution which proposes to add a new clause to the Article 41 of the Irish Constitution. If the referendum is passed, Article 41.4 will be added and read as follows: "Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex."

I had originally planned to write a rant about how cowardly the Irish politicians are to let a matter of human rights be decided by a referendum, how gay rights are human rights and how it is every human beings inalienable right to pursue happiness in the way they choose.

However when reading up for this post, I encountered several reports stating that any change to the Irish constitution must be put to a vote, so there will be no rant today, alas... (If I have misunderstood something in this regard, please don't hesitate to tell me so, I feel a strong urge and need to have a good rant to cleanse my system!)

Instead I feel encouraged by the polls that seem to show that a huge majority of the wonderful Irish people will vote for the amendment, even if the naysayers seem to be catching up slowly as the day of the referendum has gotten closer.

Please join me in keeping your fingers crossed and hoping for a win for "Yes" in tomorrows referendum.