So, both lost by an overwhelming no. The problem is we voted no not because the ideas were bad (recognising single parent families, removing sexist language) but because the wording was bad. However, far right nuts who hold not a single seat in our ‘parliament’ are acting like we voted no because the Irish people all agree with them and their sexist shite. Sucks.
So, being from America, my first thought after reading an article with a similar take to yours is that I wish this was the type of political problem that made headline news in my country.
Moving on, what do you think? Did the Irish people let the perfect be the enemy of the good, or was the language so fatally flawed that it could actually make things worse?
Oh it was awfully worded, for the Care Amendment they changed ‘endeavour to ensure’ to ‘strive to support’ when it came to the government offering child welfare and the disabled. Yeah, sexist language was removed but at what cost.
For the Family Amendment, families based on ‘marriage’ became ‘…marriage or durable relationships’. What the fuck is a durable relationship? Am I now in a relationship with my mate cause we rent an apartment together? If they leave, will there be a divorce? (Hyperbolic but you get the gist). Weirdly enough, we would’ve inadvertently became the first Western nation to legally recognise polyamory.
Both of the amendments set out to solve real issues: *Sexism (Care) and not recognising single parent households (Family).
*The Care one only used sexism as a trojan horse to gut welfare. You could have easily worded it to get rid of the sexist langauge without slyly trying to screw over disabled people (there’s a case in SCOTI (Supreme Court of Ireland) that is deciding this soon). (However, weirdly this only protects women carers, read it yourself).
The amendments were shite and every party besides one small left-wing one rejected them before the vote shockingly.
Now, ultra-right wing nuts are trying to frame it as Ireland ‘protecting traditional values’ by saying women are in fact homemakers and all of that implied ‘they belong in the kicthen’ crap, and how ‘marriage is sacred’. It’s a real shame, cause the ideas were sound themself but written so badly we had to shoot them down and now the everyone in the government is playing the blame game.
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