I hate to harp on the whole gay marriage thing but something amazing just happened. Last Friday, the Republic of Ireland became the first country to recognize same-sex marriage by popular vote, by a landslide, in fact. Yes, Roman Catholic Ireland, by 62% of ballots cast, embraced marriage between “two persons without distinction as to their sex.” Ireland...by popular vote. Let’s let that sink in a moment. I heard an Irish woman comment matter-of-factly, “It’s only fair.”
Now, admittedly, I understand a bit of that. I was raised in an Irish household with traditional family gatherings. We had enough Ganleys and Gallaghers, Farrells and Hanrahans to fill a pub. We had a cop, a nun and a priest in the family, too. My mother played the piano with everyone singing along to popular standards and, of course, those old Irish melodies. Sometimes my grandmother joined my mother at the keyboard (she played piano for the silent movies in the old days). Together they’d bring the house down. There were the laughers (my mother’s side) and the serious (my father’s side) and the storytellers (all sides). My gay uncle would be making pitchers of Manhattans and his partner would be singing along with the rest.
It wasn’t always as harmonious as all that but, for all intents and purposes, it was live and let live. So it was of no surprise to me when the Irish shrugged off marriage equality as just simple progress and voted for it, overwhelmingly. It wasn’t one of those American-style campaigns either. It wasn’t a bloody, tooth-and-nail, knockdown, drag-out fight with the doom and gloom “No’s” preaching eternal damnation and the collapse of civilization should two lads or two lasses be allowed to wed. It was all quite dignified. There was support across political party lines, too. Priests even preached “Yes” from the pulpit. Irish ex-patriots actually flew back to Ireland so they could vote. Here gay folks boast that they didn’t vote even though they live a block away from a polling station. And, unlike here, in our fine democracy, the “No’s” not only gracefully conceded their defeat, they congratulated the “Yes” side! No doubt they all drank a pint or two together in celebration. Live and let live, after all.
Meanwhile, LGBT people in Wisconsin have yet to get so much as a card from our governor. There are already threats of civil disobedience, even civil unrest, should the U.S. Supreme Court bring the country to complete marriage equality.
But for the moment, we can celebrate with the Irish. Milwaukee PrideFest opens next week. It’s Wisconsin’s first anniversary of marriage equality and hundreds of LGBT married couples, along with the lot of us, will celebrate. And, when you come through the PrideFest gates, look up at the flags, salute the Rainbow and the Irish ones and do a jig. And, for the naysayers, as my dear mother would piously say, “If the Lord can’t turn their hearts, He should at least turn their ankles.”
