Irish people travelling from Britain to Dublin to vote in an historic referendum
on whether same-sex marriage should become legal.
Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Images
Although final result in historic vote on marriage equality is not expected until Saturday afternoon, voters are thought to have strongly backed change in law
Saturday 23 May 2015 07.04 EDT
Voters in Ireland appear to have voted strongly in favour of legalising same-sex marriage in the republic’s referendum, leaders on both sides of the campaign said on Saturday.
With the ballot count still underway, the Irish health minister, Leo Varadkar, who came out as gay at the start of the government’s campaign, says Dublin looks to have voted about 70% in favour of gay marriage, while most districts outside the capital also were reporting strong leads for the yes campaign.
Senior figures from the no campaign, who sought to prevent Ireland’s constitution from being amended to permit gay marriage, said the only question now was how large the yes side’s margin of victory would be from Friday’s vote.
Varadkar said: “We’re the first country in the world to enshrine marriage equality in our constitution and do so by popular mandate. That makes us a beacon, a light to the rest of the world of liberty and equality. It’s a very proud day to be Irish.”
Aodhán Ó Ríordáine, the quality minister, told Reuters: “I think it’s won. I’ve seen bellwether boxes open, middle-of-the road areas who wouldn’t necessarily be liberal and they are resoundingly voting yes.”
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Final results are not expected until Saturday afternoon in the poll, which is expected to make history in the global struggle for gay rights in a nation where only 22 years ago homosexuality was still criminalised.
Grainne Healy, co-director of the Yes Equality group, said: “It’s an extraordinary day.
“We were going out not telling people to vote yes, we were going out saying: ‘I am voting yes and I’d like to tell you why.’ That’s how the campaign started and that’s how it has worked.”
Senator David Norris, one of the key figures in having homosexuality decriminalised in the 1990s, said a yes victory would be a wonderful result.
“I believe that by the end of today gay people will be equal in this country. I think it’s wonderful,” he said. “It’s a little bit late for me. As I said the other day, I’ve spent so much time pushing the boat out that I forgot to jump on and now it’s out beyond the harbour on the high seas, but it’s very nice to look at.”
Mary Cunningham, director of the National Youth Council of Ireland, praised a new generation of voters for making a difference.
“It represents a victory not only for the yes side, but also for Irish society, Irish democracy and the young people of Ireland,” she said.
“This result sends a strong message to young people across Ireland that they are valued equally; and that we want to promote respect and eliminate homophobia.”
David Quinn, director of the Iona Institute religious thinktank, one of the leading groups fighting the reform, took to Twitter: “Congratulations to the yes side. Well done.”
But pro-change voters were eagerly awaiting confirmation that the measure they had campaigned for would be passed. “It’s very hard for it to sink in, inside screaming and jumping already but I’m just waiting for that exact moment when I can say it,” said Ger O’Keefe, 27, a gay yes campaigner from Waterford.
The Fianna Fail leader, Micheál Martin, told RTE Radio on Saturday that he was confident the result would see the introduction of gay marriage.
“I think it was a debate that captured the imagination and I had a strong sense that the yes vote would win,” he said. “I think that will be borne out today.”
It is expected that the national turnout will be about 60%, with 3.2 million people registered to vote. Kevin Humphreys, a Labour party junior minister, said turnout was high in both working-class and middle-class parts of his Dublin South East constituency.
Friday’s nationwide vote to give same-sex couples the constitutional right to marry has drawn worldwide attention, with dozens of foreign broadcasters arriving in Dublin for the count.
The focus now shifts from the polling stations to the counts at 43 parliamentary constituencies and then Dublin Castle – once the seat of British power in Ireland – where the overall national vote is being counted. About 2,000 citizens will watch an outdoor screening of the announcement of the result on Saturday afternoon inside the castle’s grounds.
The national turnout is expected to be higher than most referendums held over the past 25 years. Yes campaigners believe that a whole new generation of younger voters have turned up at polling stations for the first time.
The proposition drawn up by the Fine Gael-Labour government asked Irish voters to amend their 78-year-old constitution, which originally defined marriage as purely between man and woman.
Voters were offered the chance to amend that constitution to: “Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex.”
Opinion polls throughout the two-month campaign suggest the government-backed amendment should be approved by a majority of voters, which would make Ireland the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage through a referendum when the results are declared on Saturday. People who left the country less than 18 months ago were able to vote, but needed to show up at a polling station in person.
The Fine Gael-Labour government and the main opposition parties all back a yes vote.
An alliance of evangelical Catholics and Protestants has distributed more than 90,000 anti-gay marriage pamphlets in the last week across Ireland, urging the electorate to veto same-sex marriage. They argue that the legalisation of gay marriage would undermine the Catholic faith and trigger unintended legal consequences in Irish courts, where adoption and surrogacy rights loom as distinct legal battlegrounds.
A yes result would provide fresh evidence of waning church influence in a country that, in the 1980s, voted forcefully in referendums to outlaw abortion and reject divorce.
Currently 17 countries, including the UK, Spain, France, Argentina and Denmark, along with several states in the US, allow same-sex couples to marry.
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"Fear Eats the Soul"
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