The Irish Referendum: The Result and the Vote
The results of Ireland's vote are tragic, but those results may not be as significant nor as problematic as is the simple fact that the question was put to a public vote at all.
Like most who will read this, I was disappointed when I heard about the result of Ireland's referendum on “gay marriage” which took place on Friday, May 22, and which resulted in an enormous majority vote in favor of approving “gay marriage.” I was disappointed, but I can't honestly say that I was surprised. With the ever increasing degradation of morals in our world; with the weakness of the Church's leaders in fighting these ailments; with the, one could almost say, encouragement of last year's Extraordinary Synod on the Family for the acceptance of gay rights on the grounds of mercy and sympathy, and with the pressures of the mass media and the lobby groups; it was never really a question of whether Ireland – Catholic Ireland – would approve “gay marriage,” but only of when. After all, France, the “Eldest Daughter of the Church” became the location of one of the greatest anti-Catholic liberal revolutions in history, and Quebec, the once Catholic province of Canada is now fairly well known as the most liberal, and is at the forefront of pushing legislation in favor of euthanasia and immoral Godless education. If the tragedy hadn't happened in Ireland this time, if the vote had come back as a NO, then they would just have waited a few more years, bought some more add space, and tried again, probably successfully. So no, I wasn't surprised, and my first reaction, after the initial shock and outrage, was kind of a “ho, hum” attitude. We've all seen it before, after all, whether with abortion, or euthanasia, or some other moral abhorrence.
My second thought concerning the referendum was that my first thought had missed the real point. Ireland is now being hailed and praised as the first country in the world to approve “gay marriage” as a result of a mandate given by the people in a public referendum. Other countries have given their approval as an act of their elected legislators (which is obviously still very wrong), but this is the first time that this question of “gay marriage” has been put to a public vote, and that fact brings up something that I find significant: Ireland just allowed morality to be decided by a majority vote. They have just rejected every principle of authority and of objective right and wrong. After all, if the public can change the rules of right and wrong by a vote, then what value do those ten rules have that were carved into two slabs of stone by God Himself so many thousands of years ago? If the people can decide, then is there anything that we can say is certainly right or certainly wrong? If a group of people scratching “X's” in boxes on pieces of paper can decide or even change a rule of morality, then can we even say that anything Hitler or Stalin did was wrong? Sorry, folks, but there goes our whole justice system. We'd better just mothball all our prisons now, and lay-off the guards.
In the end, the results of Ireland's vote are tragic, but those results may not be as significant nor as problematic as is the simple fact that the question was put to a public vote at all.
A Canadian Catholic Layman
