Gay marriage could be a casualty of Yes consensus

IS IT just me or do other Yes supporters in the referendum for gay marriage think that a corporate endorsement from the Dublin boss of Twitter was a strategic error? And that Twitter Ireland’s managing director Stephen McIntyre should have confined his support to a personal message of 140 characters in cyberspace?

The support of Twitter will do nothing to sway the opinion of undecided voters or persuade No voters to change their minds.

Mr McIntyre was at the epicentre of a suffocating embrace of the establishment when he made his highly publicised contribution to the gay marriage debate.

And that single voice of Official Ireland for a Yes vote is the biggest threat to it succeeding.

Every political party and every major media outlet is on unrelenting message for a Yes vote.

Their message: it is not hip, modern or even respectable to question the consensus for gay marriage. And that anyone who opposes it is a cruel killjoy.

The patronising tone of the Yes campaign suggests that anyone who is not for them is against them and therefore not worthy of respect.

But I have no doubt that when they are in the privacy of the voting booth, some voters will refuse to be brow-beaten.

And it will be a close call when the votes are counted.

THE shrill hostility to a conscience clause among some in the Yes campaign reflects the sort of intolerance they abhor on the No side. It is hard to find fault with the Quakers who proposed the conscience clause but there are many reasons to be suspicious of the Muslims, Presbyterians and traditional Catholics who joined them.

When I was a child, Presbyterians in Belfast allowed me no conscience clause when they locked up the children’s swings in public parks on a Sunday. Where they are in a majority, Muslims appear to have no understanding of agreeing to disagree on religious matters and have great difficulty separating church and state.

And despite Pope Francis’s ‘Who am I to judge?’ reply when he was asked about homosexuals, the Vatican has delayed since January approving the appointment of a gay French diplomat as ambassador to the Holy See.

But two wrongs do not make a right.

I believe asking any woman to continue a pregnancy where there is a fatal foetal abnormality is unconscionable and cruel – just as wrong as insisting on someone with a moral objection taking part in any procedure to abort that foetus.

If bakeries or florists have issues with messages in support of gay marriage, they should make their views publicly known.

The gay community, and others who find this unpalatable, can use their freedom of choice to confront their stance and take their business elsewhere.

I will vote yes because the gay people I know want it and it may begin to make amends for the horrifying prejudices that they have suffered through many years. I’ll also vote yes so that gay people, like my friend Pat Carey, can love and be loved as they choose and wish.

Living happily ever after is even more difficult.