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We have just had our two referenda, voting on International Women's Day, and the counting was finished yesterday. Once again, the people have let down the government by our backward ignorance. They're ashamed of us before the neighbours, so they are.
(1) Turnout was pretty low, running around 44% for both referenda. Gosh, who could possibly have guessed that the burning issue of the day in the minds of the public was not "outdated sexist language in the Constitution must be replaced by gender-neutral inclusive language?"
(2) The complaining already started about "far-right" and "ultra-conservative" voices, with The Guardian newspaper taking the tone on the backwards priest-ridden Irish. Though I can't blame the Brits for it this time, as it's their Ireland correspondent(s) who are doing it, and they're likely the liberal chattering class types that want oh so desperately to be cosmopolitan and fit in with the peers in London and New York.
What went wrong, Rory-boo, is that the people exercised their democratic right of self-determination. Sorry if this embarrasses you at an Islington dinner party, or even a D4 one, but the "right" result does not always mean "the way I wanted it to happen".
I fucking wish, but no. You can sleep safe in your beds, The Handmaid's Tale is not about to come true (not for want of the liberals/progressives and their fever dreams about it).
(3) But aren't there ultra-right far-conservatives or whatever hopping on this issue?
Yes, and that's down to Leo Varadkar being a smug prick. Sorry for the harsh language, but let me explain.
Where did the likes of these, who are not - let me emphasise - as yet representative of the conservative views in Ireland, get this notion about two genders? Well, good old Leo (our first openly out and gay politician and Taoiseach) couldn't keep his yap shut and run a sensible campaign. He couldn't stick to the line about "sexist outdated language", he had to drop in "non-binary and transgender" as well. Now, I can't find the specific article where that quote was, so feel free to think I'm a mistaken fool. But he kept hammering on about "gender equality" which allowed a crack in the presentation for people to work at.
(4) The government's campaign was stupid, patronising, and didn't deal with the questions being asked. Just vote Yes/Yes like good obedient little puppets, your betters know what you need and want. The two referenda were (a) Family (redefining the definition of the family as more than based on marriage) and (b) Care (also "women's labour in the home", the old language. Now everybody is a carer, regardless of gender, marital status, or wotsit, ain't that grand?
So the government proposed to protect marriage by... removing language about marriage and stretching the definition of what constitutes a family. It's "durable relationships", you see. What's a durable relationship? Ah, um, well - you'll know it when you see it. Do you send out Christmas cards together? Did you go to a wedding as a couple? That's a durable relationship! While Leo (who did most of the talking) tried to include "grandparents taking care of kids, etc." as examples of "the family not based on marriage", most people would have considered those to be recognised as family members anyway. So it's about cohabiting couples, and the big question there is - what is stopping them from getting married? We have divorce, we have same-sex marriage. If you're just living together and have kids, you pretty much have a lot of legal protections and rights anyway. You can see why some jumped on this as anti-immigrant because suppose someone is legally married to two wives abroad and comes here, that's a 'durable relationship' and now that's a family, even if polygamy is still illegal in Ireland. If there's no definition on what is a "durable relationship", then "we've been dating for three weeks" is as good as "we're living together for twelve years".
The second one was on care, and purported to remove the sexist language about the support women in the home give to the common good. Well, the 1937 Constitution may be sexist, but it recognises the reality: the vast majority of caretakers/caregivers are women. Women who go out to work are now doing two jobs, in 'paid' work and at home when taking care of elderly/sick parents, children with needs, etc. The new wording was very inclusive, but it did strongly seem to be shoving responsibility for caretaking onto 'the family' (read: mothers/sisters/daughters/wives) and stepping back from any duty of the State to provide services.
A lot of people voted 'no' on this one because they didn't believe the airy promises that the State would "strive" to support carers.
(5) So what was the result?
As I said, a low turnout, but a thrashing for the government/Yes side. Between both referenda, 29% voted Yes and 71% voted No. To break that down, for the Family referendum, 67.7% voted No, for the Care referendum, 73.9% voted No.
I have to say, I am both surprised (I thought it would go the other way, with the whole liberal feel-good modernisation vibe of the past few years) and gratified. No, people aren't stupid and they don't believe you and they won't be bullied by "but you don't want to be right-wing conservatives, now do you?" type of propaganda.
EDIT: (6) And already the blame game is going on, with fingers being pointed and fault allotted to leakers:
No, really? Changing the wording would mean legal repercussions? See, the government was promising that no no no, courts never involved, family was still based on marriage, everything was tickety-boo. Of course the courts are gonna get involved, the first time somebody wants to claim inheritance rights or maintenance or palimony based on "we were never married, but we were a durable relationship and the Constitution now recognises this as the same as a married couple, gimme my money!"
What people were most concerned over, though, was the whole notion of the role of carers and State support for same. If now the State is only going to "strive" to support people who need help, what does that mean, exactly? Can they claim that they've done their duty but no, sorry, no help for you? Again, courts are going to get involved here.
The Yes campaign by the government really did treat people as being stupid, and now they're trying to blame far-right and ultra-nationalists and bad old religious conservatives for this defeat. Well, they cut the rod for their own backs on this one.
The Irish government seems to care much less about the opinion of its constituants than the median European government, but still, 71% has gotta hurt.
Losing a referendum is always a humiliation because only a fool would call for one they couldn't confidently win, but losing it by that margin? You can't even handwave it away as a fluke like Brexit, this is more than a supermajority of people telling you to go fuck yourself.
You'd think a loss like that would fall the government. Any inkling of that?
There’s a problem in that nearly all of the opposition parties were also campaigning for a Yes vote. Besides a few independents and Aontú (a party with 1 seat) there’s no one in opposition ready to capitalise on this.
Yeah. Similar to the one in Australia recently on the Indigenous voice where the opposition were campaigning around the lines of 'This is not the appropriate way to recognize the Indigenous and may be an overreach' instead of 'Ha! This is an absurdity' direct refutation. Which makes it a bit harder to capitalize on the failure.
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