Me, too, CF. I remember when my daughter was very young, maybe six or seven, and I said something like, “Maybe someday Vince and Jim [our very close friends] will be able to get married,” and she was shocked that they couldn’t. “What? What do you mean they can’t get married? Why not? Who is stopping them?”
^^ new generation, new ideas. Bravo to Ireland. Now if only they could legalize abortion…
Abortion is supposed to be permitted to save the mother’s life, but that hasn’t worked in practice, as the death of that poor Indian woman in Ireland proved not so long ago.
Regardless of this vote, Ireland remains the only country in the EU with no available process for legally changing gender. After a delay of many years, a gender recognition bill has finally been introduced by the government, and has not met with universal acclaim. Among other things, it would require any married person who transitions to get divorced, even if they and their spouse wish to remain married. The purpose of that provision was to prevent transition from resulting in a same-sex marriage – rather pointless now.
It is true that acceptance of T is lagging behind acceptance of LGB in many places.
The lights are going on for a lot of people, young and old. A relative of mine has gone from saying “I just don’t understand it” to “You know, people are just attracted to who they’re attracted to, period.” LOL. Yeah. Simple really.
To answer the original question, yes I have, and I am very happy about it.
Now for reproductive rights…
Now for marriage equality in the US, too.
I think this is a good start, and only bodes well for further changes down the line as mentioned above.
And yes, it would be nice if all 50 states followed suit.
I really think this is an idea whose time as come…it is just a matter of when, not if, this becomes the norm in most if not all western nations, and possibly even others which one might not believe would embrace this.
My quip in post #10 was one of those jokes that just wrote itself.
But seriously . . . I’m not sure how this will bode for the state of the priesthood. I say this as someone who is affiliated with the Episcopal church which doesn’t discriminate based on gender, sexual orientation or marital status RE the priesthood. I also say this as someone with a child who is gay. It seems like there are several categories of people who are most likely to be Catholic Priests: 1) people who really are called and able to sublimate their sexual and marital desires for the service of God 2) Gay men who don’t see a viable open future for themselves to marry and have a family 3) Men who only pretend to sublimate their sexual desires but either have affairs with adult women or prey on alter boys out of convenience 4) Converted married Anglicans
With the new ability of gay men to marry and lead open family lives I am guessing that the Catholic Church loses a category of priests. However, they are also gaining more in category 4 as some Anglicans and Episcopalians who take exception to the inclusive nature of the Episcopal church shift over. These priest tend to be from African nations where persecution against homosexuals is rampant and accepted. It could be that while the general society becomes more open the institution of the church becomes more closed.
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/ indicates that unaffiliateds are gaining in numbers in the US, while Catholics and mainline Protestants are shrinking in numbers. The usually more conservative evangelical Protestants are growing in number, although not as fast as the US population.
Some more information from the survey: http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/
I was speaking especially about the institution of the Catholic Church in Ireland when I said that. If the society as a whole becomes more open and the church institutions become more closed it seems that active association would go down. However, I guess the opposite could happen and it could strengthen the resolve of the hard line true believers.
It’s strange to think of Ireland as not a Catholic country but when I visited there, I got the impression that it is much less Catholic than Italy. There are no church bells waking everybody up at 7 AM in every town and city. So many of the older churches are in ruins (thanks to Cromwell). A man told me about the 7 sacred wells at the foot of the Hill of Tara and how 2 of them are secret “so the Catholics don’t try to ruin their purity”. Things have changed.
I think it is still culturally Catholic even if only a vestigial thing.