Gay Marriage Referendum in Ireland today...

S.ilvio said:

Your reaction to my questions is interesting...

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So you can't say gay marriage made Ireland better or is of God?

Apparently posting on forums is more important than actually doing something.

S.ilvio said:

To those of you who fear Ireland's decision is enabling Satan get a stronger hold on us, I have these three questions.

What did you do to stop it?

If you indeed did something, could you have done more?

Can you sleep at night knowing you did all in your power to try and prevent it?

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If i listed everything I had done some here would undoubtedly call it bragging. (yes, it's been said to me before on this board) so I'll not give them the satisfaction. Suffice to say that God has seen everything done and knows why, and that's what counts.

pdudgeon said:

If i listed everything I had done some here would undoubtedly call it bragging. (yes, it's been said to me before on this board) so I'll not give them the satisfaction. Suffice to say that God has seen everything done and knows why, and that's what counts.

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Even though we often disagree I commend you for the work you have done in support of your beliefs. Sometimes I think we think we are furthering a cause by jabbering on these forums when we are really just wasting time.

RKO said:

Even though we often disagree I commend you for the work you have done in support of your beliefs. Sometimes I think we think we are furthering a cause by jabbering on these forums when we are really just wasting time.

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thanks. I've always believed in the "open hand, open wallet', (holding loosely what one has and not grasping it tightly) and 'boots to the ground' approaches, as well as carrying on the Christian work that my ancestors did.
In that respect i have huge shoes to fill.

S.ilvio said:

I ask the question with tongue firmly in cheek.

Some cyber zealots (pdudgeon excluded) get on my wick, pontificating from on high.

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i know whereof you speak, but i've learned to just consider the source, treat it like a clanging gong, and move on.

MoreCoffee said:

The vote reflects Irish public opinion I am not sure why that would reflect on the Catholic Church.

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My guess? Racist stereotyping. Think "irish", what do you think? Rowdy, hard-drinking, friendly in a Fight Club sort of way, extremely catholic. Of course, it might also be that 71% of the Irish are catholic.

MoreCoffee said:

The vote reflects Irish public opinion I am not sure why that would reflect on the Catholic Church.

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perhaps not reflect exactly, but it can serve as a warning to redouble our efforts, and also to be as instructed in Matthew 5:10-32.

Standing by for various explanations about why this referendum doesn't reflect the TRUE will of the Irish people...

I fail to see how people wanting to get married undermines marriage. What undermines marriage far more to me is casual marriage followed by casual divorce, and in particular those who engage in one marriage after another; married for weeks or months, then divorcing and moving on to the next equally casual relationship. When we have 'celebrities' marrying three or four or more times, and everyone happy to use the word 'marriage' for that, it strikes me that we are a bit late in claiming any special meaning to the term.

A gay couple wanting to marry to mark a lifelong commitment can never do anything like the harm that a fifth 'marriage' by such a celebrity, followed by everyone cheerfully talking of 'husbands' and 'wives'.

This particular argument was lost long ago, in other words. And it was not lost by gay people.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/mostmarried-man-dies-at-88-1256863.html

S.ilvio said:

To those of you who fear Ireland's decision is enabling Satan get a stronger hold on us, I have these three questions.

What did you do to stop it?

If you indeed did something, could you have done more?

Can you sleep at night knowing you did all in your power to try and prevent it?

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Mikhael Disciple of Christ said:

Who cares about those questions?

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Well, as it transpires, MDC, we do.

That is to say Catholics do. Let me give you a little tutorial here:

Catholics believe that following one's consistence is THE most important virtue. A Catholic's conscience has primacy over everything else. As such it is necessary to regularly examine it to ensure that you are following it correctly and that it is properly formed. Questions like, did I do all I could? Could I do better ? Can I live with what I have done in peace ?

These are important questions to a Catholic and the kinds of questions one would ask one's self before Confession.

Just so you know Confession is one of the 5 Sacraments the Reformation (of which you are evidently so proud) dumped so I'm really not surprised that you don't understand the importance these questions have to Catholics.

But now you do.

Can you really say gay marriage just made Ireland better and was the will of God? Guess what, if it isn't God's will, it's the other guys'.

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Actually I can't say either way for either question And to some extent it really doesn't matter. Catholics, you see, tend to be more concerned about their own behavior and feel the if everyone else was the world would natural become a better place. Beyond that we tend to accept things as the come and believe they happen for a reason and the God has control and things will work out the way God wants them to. We just don't always see the wisdom of His ways.

In the Missouri Synod Lutherans it's different ?[/QUOTE]

Armoured said:

Standing by for various explanations about why this referendum doesn't reflect the TRUE will of the Irish people...

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To be fair, I think such arguments can be made about certain referendums, especially ones with low turnouts, or where the level of turnout correlates with one of the responses(possibly indicating that one side had trouble motivating their side to actually vote); none of that seems to apply here though.

Armoured said:

Standing by for various explanations about why this referendum doesn't reflect the TRUE will of the Irish people...

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That seems to be an American conservative thing. Whenever a vote doesn't go their way, they always round up the usual suspects: election fraud, media bias, and "low-information" voters, to name a few. From what I've read so far, the losing side in Ireland is accepting defeat honorably, and not perfidiously casting blame elsewhere.

I have an Irish friend (I'm in the US) who said that a lot of Irish-Americans apparently flew home to cast a "yes" vote on this. Is that true? Is that something that is allowed via Ireland's laws? I know some countries whose people exist largely in diaspora (i.e., Lebanon) have had voting rights extended to such people, at least in certain cases, or extend certain rights to such people (particular involving inheritance and property), but I don't know anything about Irish law.

If it is true, that goes a long way toward answering another poster's question re: "What did you do about it?" If the yes vote can rally people to fly in from outside of the country for their cause, then of course the no vote will lose. It seems like a lot of people who are against this are against it only up to the point when they'd have to stop posting about how terrible it is and actually go outside to do something about it. And, since someone else brought it up, in America such a thing would basically be useless, since such referendums can be determined to be unconstitutional even if voted in by popular vote (e.g., California's Proposition 8, which passed with a 52% yes vote, was overturned on just those grounds shortly afterwards), and this particular right has been invented out of whole cloth by the judiciary in some cases (e.g., New Mexico, which never had a law for it or against it, but which nonetheless decided to force county clerks to issue marriage licenses to gay couples after the state's supreme court found that not doing so was suddenly unconstitutional).

I would be surprised if this "popular vote" approach would be tried here in the USA, since it is obviously not needed. Just keep winning legal victories, and it will become nationwide law in no time, as it probably will be soon. From an efficiency standpoint, it's much easier for the feds to decide this by fiat than to leave things up to state and city ordinances. I'm sure we all remember the recent events in Indiana, and probably recognize that such antagonistic, press-aided conflict is not good for the country overall.

Anyway, congratulations to those who wanted this, and condolences to those who didn't. As usual, the world will continue on either way.