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.
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento