Irish Election are pleased to announce our collection of Irish Political T-shirts. Get yours now! Visit our shop.»
Read more about: Gay Rights, Progressive Democrats
Here is something that people can help me with. McDowell is in favour of civil partnership of co-habiting couples be they gay or straight. Also, he is now in favour of adoption rights and, I am presuming, duel-guardianship. So why are the PDs not just out in favour of gay marriage? I mean, what part other than the name do they disagree with?
Post a comment below:
techPresident – The Future of Campaign Technology: The Ground Game
Irish Parties looking at learning online and database lessons from Obama could do worse than bear this post in mind. Almost as soon as the election is over, improvements and evolution are making some parts redundant and others essential. Get your campaign an i-phone for everyone? Might be better than printing flyers, it goes to show how parties, if they take it seriously, need to keep ahead of the wave - not just follow.
Colman at the EuroTrib give his reasoning on why Lisbon is dead. The Government's incapable handling of the budget cuts are the nail in the coffin.
Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar offers his view on how the SBP Opinion Poll would translate in an election.
Think tank: Time for democracy to click into place
Dan Sullivan gets himself into The Sunday Times, calling for the internet to connect citizens to a more meaningful democracy. Its an argument I agree with wholeheartedly myself. Have a read and let him know what you think.
Colm Burke MEP reckons that we need to get honest and tell people we will be holding a second Lisbon Vote in Oct 2009 with protocols desigend to secure a yes vote.
The name, I’d guess.
There’s a practicality issue here too. The civil partnerships and adoption stuff can be done through legislation, the word “marriage” will probably require a constitutional amendment. So, you can do civil partnerships pretty much straight away, but marriage would take longer and take a lot more preparing of ground now and hard work during the campaign. I think most of the parties are doing the “preparing of the ground” but at the moment anyway - civil partnerships is part of that.
Do the PDs actually support civil unions/partnerships? Obviously this LRC publication is about co-habiting couple who are neither married or… eh… united civily… I think they just assumed the Government would introduce a civil union law soon and so didn’t really factor anything else in.
Just reading today’s (Saturday’s) times, and I love this quote from McDowell:
“We have to be careful that what we’re putting in place doesn’t amount to an alternative to marriage that is so financially attractive that marriage itself becomes burdensome.”
Obviously there was no argument for giving unmarried co-habiting couples even greater financial “bonuses” than married people (that would defeat the whole ‘equality’ ideal), but is McDowell suggesting that to take the financial gains out of marriage would lead to a collapse of the institution of marriage itself? Sure, people factor in the tax benefits when it comes to marriage and some may even use it as a central reason for the decision, but I’m sure the vast majority of people wouldn’t decide not to marry the person they (apparently) love just because there’s no money in it for them anymore… or am I being a bit of an auld and antiquated romantic here (with McDowell being the cold realist)?
Do the PDs actually support civil unions/partnerships? Pretty much also with McDowell coming out seemingly saying he has no problem with gay adoption. It seems that the PD’s and greens are the only ones going this far. Correct me if I am wrong.
or am I being a bit of an auld and antiquated romantic here (with McDowell being the cold realist)?
possibly.
I would like full gay-marriage to be legalised but civil-unions are at least a significant advance on what we have now.