Ireland Legalizes Gay Marriage

Aside from the ever-changing fashion and music trends and the technological inventions, nothings spells ‘progress’ as a change in the way we look at human rights.

As it happens, Ireland officially legalized gay marriage through a referendum. After a few months of media battles, the majority of Ireland’s population ultimately voted ‘yes’.

Giving A Good Example

It’s not only the controversy factor of same-sex marriage that gives this story so much importance, but also the fact that you could’ve been arrested for being gay in Ireland 22 years ago.

Besides being the first country in the world to legalize gay marriage, Ireland also showed the greatest change.

The representative of the Catholic Iona Institute David Quinn was one of the strongest nay-sayers in this battle, but he ultimately conceded.

He said: “It was always going to be an uphill battle — there were far fewer organizations on the ‘no’ side, while all the major political parties were lined up on the ‘yes’ side and you had major corporations coming out for the first time to say how we should vote on a particular issue.”

A Long Way To Go

As BBC News report, the majority of Irish people agreed with same-sex marriages being legal, with the final results showing an ‘unusually high’ turnout.

However, Ireland still has to do certain things before it becomes a beacon of human right values of Europe. Even though gay marriage is now legal there, abortion still isn’t. Except when a woman’s life is in danger, she has to go somewhere else if she wants an abortion, even in the case of rape and underage rape.

Nonetheless, Ireland’s latest decision shows us not only how open-minded it is towards the LGBT society, but also the near-unanimity of its people in this decision. Way to go, Ireland!