ireland

Everyday living
1

well done to ireland who have a new PM who is a gay immigrant.

so what?

this is a big step forward for ireland.

there should be no discrimination anywhere about anyone.

we’re in 2017 ffs.

well done Leo Varadkar

carole x

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I heard on R4 a couple of days ago that there was lots of overseas press coverage about his sexuality, but that the voters in Ireland weren’t a bit bothered by all that: they were interested only in his economic policies. I did find that bit particularly cheering!

Alison

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We do actually have a gay and lesbian population here too guys. Including in my own family. Ireland was also the first country to legalise same sex marriage.

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Me too - we’re all the same in our differences, so let’s just get over it. More things unite us than divide us, and all that.

Jo x

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Interesting article on him in the Observer yesterday.

“Yes, there are reasons to celebrate Leo Varadkar becoming leader of Fine Gael. But he is an austerity-championing neoliberal who is against reproductive rights”.

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[quote=“Poppy6488”]

We do actually have a gay and lesbian population here too guys. Including in my own family. Ireland was also the first country to legalise same sex marriage.

[/quote] “First country”??? First country on the island of Ireland perhaps because same sex marriage is (shamefully) not yet legalised in Northern Ireland. It was legalised in England, Wales and Scotland in 2014 (legislation passed 2013). The referendum in Eire that allowed it wasn’t until 2015.

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But before we rest on our laurels too much here though, the UK is put a bit to shame by the fact that the first country in the World to legalise gay marriage was the Netherlands in 2001 (Denmark were the first to have Civil Partnerships back in the 1980s) Have to say though, that as a person of Anglo-Irish heritage myself I was more than a little proud at how grown up Irish voters were about the whole subject - far less histrionics than some people over here had when the subject was mooted!

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My brother in law is FINALLY going to marry his partner of 20 years in a few months time so I have been doing a bit of reading up on the subject!

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Ah yes - saw this piece on The Guardian website yesterday. I was amused by the baffled indignation of the contributor, flummoxed as she clearly was by the fact that this ‘gay man of colour’, as she put it, was (unfathomably to her) the WRONG SORT of gay man of colour - i.e. not Left-wing. And this from a journalist who probably would claim to deplore the making of lazy and prejudiced assumptions about people!

Alison

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It’s the output that counts, not the input… (cannot believe I just said that…), quality above quantity… good luck to him and Ireland!

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And let us remember that both the two big parties in Ireland are (like America) slightly right of centre (one more than the other).
They both grew out of a split in Sinn Fein after Independence in 1922, and the Irish Civil War.

Unlike America, they have both needed coalitions to govern.

Anyway, Leo V is not an immigrant - he was born in Ireland, and his mother was Irish.

Geoff

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