It looks like the SSM referendum will be carried by about 55% to 45% although the
margin could be wider.
We on the “no” side did our best but we didn't realize until way too late (or I didn't anyway) that the "yes" side were years ahead of everyone else in their preparation for this moment. Atlantic Philanthropies (AP) spent about $25 million dollars working for this result over the past ten years or so. The investment was hidden and only recently discovered (it was, in fact, hiding in plain sight on AP’s website). I gather that Amnesty Ireland got about $13 million.
I made a comparison the other day between the way parents talk quietly
about SSM when their children are around and the way parents kept their thoughts
to themselves in Nazi Germany. I'm not saying that Enda Kenny and Joan Burton are going to organize book burnings in College Green but in a
manner of speaking they already have. Certainly, children have been heavily
indoctrinated. You could see the same excitement in the faces of the young
people who flew into Dublin from abroad yesterday to vote as was the case with
university students in Germany in the early 1930s. That generation died by the
tens of thousands at Stalingrad and other places. The younger generation here
will not face the same fate but they will become demoralized. When things start
going wrong for them they won't have any frame of reference. The older
generations will just put their heads down and get on with things as best
they can. There will be a slow realization in the coming years that the degraded
nature of Irish democracy has passed the point of no return. I suspect many
people are close to a realization of that already.
I spent my working life as a public servant warning about policy mistakes that would lead to disaster. On the economic front, everything turned out as I thought it would except much worse! I was never involved with social policy but I never in my wildest dreams believed we would sink so far and so fast as a society. However, that is what happens when a society makes mistakes. One mistake begets another and it becomes harder and harder to find the necessary people who are capable of making or willing to make the right decisions. Up until we joined the euro, I thought that the degraded nature of Irish society was caused by partition but after almost a century of "independence" I now realize that degradation is its true nature. It is the reason we were a victim of our nearest neighbour for so long.
I found the campaign ghastly, mainly because I have been here before with the euro. I realized after we joined the euro that the Irish State could not survive. It collapsed in 2008 and was kept afloat by the troika. It will be kept afloat by the EU until that collapses. After that, the future is very uncertain. We can expect agencies of the State, some of which openly supported the "yes" side in this referendum, to become more identified with the "ruling" clique. The MD of IDA Ireland said that a "yes" vote would assist inward investment. It was an extraordinarily stupid and inappropriate thing for a public servant to say (and untrue – MNCs couldn’t give a hoot) but many MNCs will now see Ireland as a kind of Zimbabwe.
I spent my working life as a public servant warning about policy mistakes that would lead to disaster. On the economic front, everything turned out as I thought it would except much worse! I was never involved with social policy but I never in my wildest dreams believed we would sink so far and so fast as a society. However, that is what happens when a society makes mistakes. One mistake begets another and it becomes harder and harder to find the necessary people who are capable of making or willing to make the right decisions. Up until we joined the euro, I thought that the degraded nature of Irish society was caused by partition but after almost a century of "independence" I now realize that degradation is its true nature. It is the reason we were a victim of our nearest neighbour for so long.
I found the campaign ghastly, mainly because I have been here before with the euro. I realized after we joined the euro that the Irish State could not survive. It collapsed in 2008 and was kept afloat by the troika. It will be kept afloat by the EU until that collapses. After that, the future is very uncertain. We can expect agencies of the State, some of which openly supported the "yes" side in this referendum, to become more identified with the "ruling" clique. The MD of IDA Ireland said that a "yes" vote would assist inward investment. It was an extraordinarily stupid and inappropriate thing for a public servant to say (and untrue – MNCs couldn’t give a hoot) but many MNCs will now see Ireland as a kind of Zimbabwe.
People will have to be careful from now on as
personal freedoms will come under pressure. Democracy is a farce here anyway
between globalization, over reliance on MNCs (and therefore the US), the EU and
the euro fiasco. Elections are no more relevant than the Eurovision Song
Contest.
To return to the analogy with Germany in 1933, I expect to see a lot of people (people with young families and people who know that Ireland is no longer their home) quietly packing their bags and leaving. I expect to see schools quietly closing their doors and moving elsewhere (perhaps to the Isle of Person). Standards, such as they are, will continue to fall, whether it is the media, politics, the health service, whatever.
On the legal front, it will be fascinating to watch the chaos unfold. Lawyers could be in court as early as next week exploiting the gaps in family law that the vote will throw up. The gay and lesbian movement might wait until after the next election before moving on to their next objectives, which will include more controls in the education field and more censorship generally. The penetration of the education system by the gay and lesbian movement, with the connivance of the State, has been very serious (I had no idea until recently what has being going on) and has paid a huge dividend for the “yes” side.
To return to the analogy with Germany in 1933, I expect to see a lot of people (people with young families and people who know that Ireland is no longer their home) quietly packing their bags and leaving. I expect to see schools quietly closing their doors and moving elsewhere (perhaps to the Isle of Person). Standards, such as they are, will continue to fall, whether it is the media, politics, the health service, whatever.
On the legal front, it will be fascinating to watch the chaos unfold. Lawyers could be in court as early as next week exploiting the gaps in family law that the vote will throw up. The gay and lesbian movement might wait until after the next election before moving on to their next objectives, which will include more controls in the education field and more censorship generally. The penetration of the education system by the gay and lesbian movement, with the connivance of the State, has been very serious (I had no idea until recently what has being going on) and has paid a huge dividend for the “yes” side.
Marriages might have to be postponed or people might have to get married in
Newry. The postponement will be caused by religious solemnisers (priests)
pulling out (they act as unpaid civil servants in about 70% of marriages in this
State) because they might not be able to stand over the new wording that will
follow the referendum. Instead of saying “do you take this woman to be your
wife” and vice versa it might be “do you take this person to be your spouse”.
That will certainly be the case at same-sex weddings but the new wording in the
Constitution might oblige the clergy to use the same wording not just when
asking the bride and groom to sign the book in the sacristy after the
wedding but at the religious ceremony itself. Even if they can finesse
that (with the help of the Courts) and have two wordings – one for men and women
at a religious ceremony and the spouse-to-spouse wording in the sacristy - the
religious solemnisers might refuse to be a party to the sacristy bit any longer.
The State has 125 civil solemnisers compared to nearly 6,000 religious
solemnisers so a church wedding next week might have to be
postponed until one of the 125 civil solemnisers can link up with the bride and
groom. Or the religious marriage might go ahead and the civil one a year later.
Which is fine but what happens if the couple split up in the meantime or one of
them, heaven forbid, dies. One of the senior members of the hierarchy will probably try to hold the line for the Government but most of his
colleagues won’t, I suspect, have anything to do with spouse to spouse business.
The Government was not even aware of the likely administrative problem until it
was pointed out to them by the “no” side and continues to deny that there is a
problem. It could be the first problem to be faced as a result of the “yes”
vote.
Internationally, the gay lobby will be dashing into the US Supreme Court on
Monday with the news. The Court is currently considering whether gay marriage is
a right under the US Constitution. My guess is that the Supreme Court will
dismiss the vote as an ignorant decision by the Paddies. Enda Kenny’s peers in
the developed world will soon let him know what they think (he pushed this thing
as part of his plan to restore Ireland’s international reputation but he - and we - will be
a laughing stock) as every headbanger from Canada to Oz to Argentina to
wherever will want the same thing.
Another typical week in Irish politics.
