Voters in Ireland have decisively rejected proposed amendments to the country’s constitution aimed at expanding the definition of the family and eliminating references to the role of women in the home because it’s supposedly ‘sexist’. The Catholic News Agency has the story.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Saturday that voters had delivered “two wallops” to the Government, which had pushed for a ‘Yes’ vote on a pair of March 8th referendums.
“Clearly we got it wrong,” he said. “While the old adage is that success has many fathers and failure is an orphan, I think when you lose by this kind of margin, there are a lot of people who got this wrong and I am certainly one of them.”
Nearly 68% of voters rejected the so-called ‘Family Amendment’, which would have removed a clause about the importance of marriage and family to society from Ireland’s 1937 constitution and legally redefined “family” as either “founded on marriage or on other durable relationships”.
The proposed ‘Care Amendment’, which would have removed a clause noting that the “state recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the state a support without which the common good cannot be achieved”, proved even more unpopular, drawing a ‘No’ vote from just under 74% of voters.
Ireland’s leading political parties and other influential groups strongly backed the well-funded referendum initiative, while some conservative groups and the country’s Catholic bishops urged a ‘No’ vote on both measures.
“This decision by the Irish electorate sends a powerful message about the importance of preserving foundational values in the face of sweeping societal changes,” Family Solidarity, an Irish conservative advocacy group that opposed the constitutional language changes, said in a statement Saturday.
Worth reading in full.
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“Family Solidarity, an Irish conservative advocacy group that opposed the constitutional language changes, said in a statement Saturday.”
The proof reader missed this last sentence…
Family Solidarity, an Irish conservative advocacy group that opposed the constitutional language changes, said in a statement ON Saturday.
https://off-guardian.org/2024/03/08/what-no-one-is-saying-about-irelands-sexist-language-referendum/
Kit Knightly’s perceptive take on the issue.
Thanks, a much more informative comment btl than can be found in the article itself.
Insightful and well-argued article. And I don’t usually read the Off-G because they’re too much into speculative motivationary aka so-called conspiracy theories, for my taste.
Kit Knightly is always worth a read because he always has a different way of looking at things.
Well done, Ireland! Here’s something else they have to contend with:
“83% of doctors under investigation for malpractice in Ireland are not Irish”
Way of the World on X: “83% of doctors under investigation for malpractice in Ireland are not Irish. Third world immigration is not a viable alternative to training our own doctors. https://t.co/qFOb53zSCY” / X (twitter.com)
I have no idea how many of these cases are for genuine incompetence, but even if you are a competent doctor, you will have a wealth of knowledge about tropical diseases and conditions, not the mix of patients you see at these latitudes. If you’ve come from the third world, you will have other ways of treating conditions, due to not having the medicines and surgical techniques available to us here. Throw in the possibility of English spoken with a heavy accent, and you have a recipe for disaster. You’d be better off consulting the bus conductor…
Incompetence, fake qualifications, deliberate criminal negligence and sexual assaults:
Bad Medicine I: The Sickening Truth About Britain’s Foreign ‘Doctors’ – The Occidental Observer
Bad Medicine II: The Escalating Problem of Third World Doctors – The Occidental Observer
Articles by Andrew Joyce, PhD
What a shame the UK does not have the right to a referendum when the political class (self-opinion Ed elite) wants to change the rules.
Maybe that needs to be changed, so we can have a true direct democracy like Switzerland, where only Swiss citizens can vote. They had 11 referendums in 2022, with voter turnouts of over 50%.
This country had 11 referendums last year. It’s a proud part of their national identity | SBS News
“Since 1874, any Swiss citizen can launch a referendum against a law or decree that has been approved by parliament. If at least 50,000 valid signatures are collected from citizens within 100 days of the official publication of the contested decision, a nationwide popular vote is held on the issue.”
Basically the Swiss establishment trust their people to decide on big issues of the day the British establishment are completely the opposite – they are arrogant viewing the electorate with contempt and scorn.
The man from Whitehall knows best!
Yes, it would only work in Britain if only British citizens were allowed to vote.
But since the citizens of at least 58 Commonwealth countries are allowed to vote in British elections, especially by postal ballots (all they need is an address in the UK, easily obtained from friends or relatives), the British people have been disenfranchised for decades.
A genuine turning point, or just another opportunity for the treacherous gobshites to regroup and weasel it in in 12 months time anyway..?
Looks like the Irish will be told to have another go at this vote.
It’s confusing that Ireland spent all its energy to expel England then rolled over to the EU & this type of WEF governance !!
The ABC of Irish politics: Anything But Cromwell…….
It strikes me that the debate could be construed as:
Statement: The wording of the constitution is archaic and should be updated.
Response: Archaic? Hmm. 1937… maybe.
Statement: We propose to change it to this new wording…
Response: Hell no!
It’s not really a change to the wording. As Kit Knightly pointed out at the Off-G (link posted by huxleypiggles above), the present wording requires the state to try hard (endeavour) to prevent mothers from being forced to leave the familiy home to take up paid work because there’s no other way to make ends meet. The suggested replacement was that the state should try hard (strive) to support family members caring for other family members. That’s a much lesser committment. Eg, it could be fullfilled by making it easier for mothers to go part-time than for other people. Or maybe even in form of moral support via public statements. The original wording means that the state should ensure that economic sausagification¹ of mothers doesn’t occur.
¹ A neologism I just invented based on the German Verwurstung, participle of the verb verwursten, use something or someone as sausage stuffing. The meaning is economic exploitation of whatever is being verwurstet (Wurst is German for sausage).
[Did I ever mention that I absolutely love the German language?]
Not sure why you’ve gone for the feminine here. If you want to turn the infinitive (not participle) of verwursten into a noun then it is das Verwursten, is it not? As far as I am aware all German verb infinitives can be used capitalized in the neuter form as nouns. I have no doubt you will correct me if I’m wrong. Verwursten seems to be a trending neologism which has replaced verwursteln (mess-up) and again quite appropriate to this situation. I commend the tribute paid to women who do not work outside the home but contribute to society unseen and unacknowledged.
The meaning is subtly different: Das Verwursten refers to the process, die Verwurstung to its object(s). Verwursteln makes no sense at all. Durchwursteln (or -wurschteln) is muddle-through, verwursteln could be something like Having f***ed up muddling through but people would recognized that as neologistic word play.
Using infinitves as nouns is somewhat awkward style in German and usually associated with overly formalistic bureaucratic language (Amtsdeutsch).
“Progessive” ?????? ——–Doesn’t that sound like something very nice? Who could object to Progress after all? ———-But progressing to what? ——–In politics it means progressing to more and more government control over everything people do and how they live. Progressives don’t use the word “communist” anymore as they know it has had such a terrible press so they just change the word.