Referendum opinion yes rt and gow

Why I’m Voting Yes

By Kevin McGahern

'This has been a very confusing debate. When I first heard we were going to decide on whether we would allow gay people the right to marriage I thought that it was a simple enough decision for Irish people to make. We’re generally a sound enough bunch and like a lot of people, I believe we should all be treated equally.

'It’s nice to live in a country that has equality. I think it makes for happier citizens overall. Some people ask, 'why do gay couples need to get married when they can already have civil partnership?' Well, that’s not equality. That’s like saying, why did Rosa Parks need to sit at the front of the bus when she could sit at the back? Thats the thing about equality: You either have it or you don’t. You cant have “a bit of” equality. It’s not cheese.

'I come from Gowna, a place not really known for its thriving gay scene. I didn't really know any gay people growing up. Sometimes you’d hear of a lad or a girl who would wait until they finished school and moved away before “coming out”. I knew someone who came from a farming background, who, after years of struggling with alcohol and destructive behaviour, finally came out to his close friends. It was only after a suicide attempt that he finally admitted he was bottling something up.

'This is, unfortunately, quite common. A recent study commissioned by the Northern Ireland Department of Education found that LGBT young people are three times as likely to attempt suicide - this is a country that has the highest rate of suicide in young people across Europe.

'Up until 1993 it was illegal to be gay in Ireland. During the '70s and '80s there were frequent vicious attacks on homosexuals across the country, one of the worse cases being the death of Declan Flynn in 1983. Five teenagers beat him with sticks in Fairview Park, Dublin, until he died choking on his own blood. They received a suspended manslaughter charge and all five of them walked free.

'The fact that same-sex acts were against the law at that time meant that in a way those five teenagers could in their own minds justify “queer bashing” by telling themselves they were performing a public service - “cleaning up the area”, as the judge himself called it. “This could never be regarded as murder,” he said. Imagine being the mother of Declan Flynn and hearing a judge say that about your son. But that was the attitude in 1983.

'We’re a little less backward nowadays but young gay people are still bullied in our schools and this will continue until we have equality. By voting No we are saying to our children “Yes, they are different. So you should treat them differently too”.

'The No side say this isn't about equality, it’s about children. In a way, they’re right. By voting Yes we are saying to our young people that if you are gay, we accept you completely, you are no different than anyone else and you have nothing to be ashamed of. You have the exact same rights as everyone else in your class.

'Nowadays, its hard to argue against equality without sounding homophobic. It sounds overtly homophobic to campaign against marriage equality so instead they muddy the waters of debate by suggesting this referendum is about surrogacy and wee children. There is no constitutional right to surrogacy for heterosexual married couples, so why would it be extended to gay couples?

'It's a devious and underhanded attempt to distract us from what we’re actual voting on.  Their aim is to confuse and scare the absolute sh*te out of everyone in the country while at the same time granting people an misguided excuse to vote against the rights of their fellow Irish citizens, guilt-free.

'In 1967, they said that allowing black people and white people to marry would destroy society. “Hello Divorce... Bye Bye Daddy...” read some of the anti-divorce posters 20 years ago - implying that more fathers would abandon their families. Today, Ireland has the third-lowest level of divorce in the world.

'So, don't pay attention to the man in the black dress saying a Yes vote will be bad for children. The Catholic Church, arguably the most prolific child abusers in the history of the world, knows a lot about selling children, and didn't seem to give a fish’s tit about taking children away from their birth mothers 40 years ago. So, why the sudden burst of compassion?

'We have a huge opportunity this Friday [May 22]. We have the power to allow a huge number of Irish people the same chance of security and happiness that the rest of us just take for granted every day. These people are our brothers, our sisters, our aunts and uncles, they are our grandchildren. Let's let them sit at the front of the bus.'