Vol. 79/No. 23      June 22, 2015

The “yes” vote carried with 62 percent. It included people across generations from both urban and rural areas, reflecting broad opposition to anti-gay prejudice and support for equal treatment under the law. All major capitalist parties supported the amendment.

“We changed forever what it means to grow up lesbian, gay in Ireland,” commented Michael Barron, a leader of one of the coalitions that campaigned for a “yes” vote.

“The referendum forced a discussion on something that people often don’t want to talk about,” Kate Brennan Harding, a radio producer and “yes” campaigner from Sligo, told the Militant. “Local priests didn’t instruct people how to vote, but said to vote with their conscience.”

Around 85 percent of the Irish population is Catholic. While the church hierarchy called for a “no” vote, some priests refused to back that call and publicly announced they would vote in favor. This registers a big change to the hierarchy’s aggressive campaign against the 1995 referendum on divorce that narrowly passed.

Pope Francis did not intervene in the debate. In response to changing attitudes among working people, he has sought to recast the church with a more inclusive image. In contrast to his predecessor Pope Benedict, Francis told reporters in 2013, “If a person is gay … who am I to judge?”

“I remember gay classmates being bullied out of school. I would never have imagined this happening,” said Micheál Hughes, a 25-year-old “yes” campaigner from the rural area of Monahan, in a phone interview. He added that just because gay marriage is legal “doesn’t mean that all the prejudice has gone.”

Advances in the fight against anti-gay discrimination are bound up with the gains made in the fight for women’s rights internationally and the growing place of this struggle in politics.

In Ireland homosexuality was decriminalized in 1993 and civil unions for same-sex couples legalized in 2010. Opponents of the amendment argued this made gay marriages unnecessary. However, civil unions don’t cover all the same legal rights as civil marriage.

Prime Minister Edna Kenny argued for a “yes” vote as a way to counter the declining influence of the family, an institution the capitalist rulers are keen to foist greater social and economic burdens on.

In Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, same-sex marriage is still illegal, unlike in the rest of the U.K.

Campaigners for abortion rights have seized on the victory to step up pressure. In the Irish Times, Anthea McTeirnan wrote that the “yes” vote showed “we love equality,” but without the right to control their own bodies, there can’t be full equality for women. “The eighth amendment to the Constitution is the first obstacle. It needs to go.” The amendment bans nearly all abortions.  
 
 
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