Marriage equality 10 years on: A boy sees us hold hands and says ‘I f***ing hate gay people’
by Dazzling_Lobster3656
Marriage equality 10 years on: A boy sees us hold hands and says ‘I f***ing hate gay people’
by Dazzling_Lobster3656
31 comments
I’d be interested do gay people broadly agree things have gone backwards. This is the sentiment in the Irish Times, but I’ve never heard it expressed by gay family and friends.
One boy says ‘I f***ing hate gay people’
Hundreds of us don’t even notice gay people holding hands because it’s not an issue.
Reformed biggot here. I haven’t seen this attitude prevalent anywhere and to be fair I would be around or near other people who are still narrow minded in their attitudes, if anything I’m seeing a broad picture of acceptance or more accurately a lack of any concern in either direction. Any people who I know who are gay including friends and family dont say anything like this is happening. I’m not so sure about this one but then I am not the discriminated against person’s here so I can’t say anything about individual or isolated cases. It seems far more likely it’s just wannabe edge lords copying Andrew tate or some other drivel they will grow out of when common sense kicks in. Also fuck Andrew tate. Utter gobshite.
It’s a far shout better in Dublin than Belfast anyway. I was quite pleased to see the progress Dublin has made from a cloistered, catholic slum to the vibrant Metropolis it is today. I saw many gay couples walking hand in hand seemingly carefree and I never saw them get any stick (a limited experience I know). What I do know is, if I were gay id much rather be taking my better half out to dinner in Dublin than Belfast, where I feel the chances of a skinhead decking you in the head are much farther from nil. It’s honestly done a 180 this last decade as to which culture is the more parochial and repressed
We’ve definitely gone backwards, I think if the vote was held today we’d struggle to win. 10 years ago people were generally more open and supportive online. In recent years , the trolls (paid, organised and international) have done a good job spreading absolute shite and noise. And many unfortunately young and old have lapped it up… What’s more worrying of late people are less likely to speak up.. and that’s including me.. I’m more fearful to have an opinion..
Dublin was about 70% in favour of marriage equality. The 30% aren’t entirely gone today.
Yes, gay people have basic human rights, but the intolerance is still there. Thankfully, I have dealt with very little intolerance personally. The worst I have actually gotten was when my bf and I got the eyes from the receptionist in Dubai when she needed to clarify numerous times they we meant to book 1 bed and not two twin beds (still really stupid of us in hindsight but whatever).
You can change the law, but you can’t change how a large demographic feel. The way I see it, it doesn’t matter your orientation, gender, race, as long as there are people out there who hate inwards, they’ll continue to hate outwards and often the small minorities are the ones who feel the brunt of that, because it’s easy.
We’ve still a long way to go.
That child has rotten ignorant parents
In the days and weeks after the marriage referendum, I was delighted to see how many same-sex couples were now holding hands as they walked together. Such a simple gesture, which seemed to say that they felt comfortable and accepted by the general public. How far we’d come.
Gradually, they stopped doing that. It’s now as rare a sight as it was before the referendum. So, not only are the bigots still out there, but they’re not keeping their bigoted thoughts to themselves.
Chances are if it was two black people he’d of said a racist comment if it was to over weight people it would have been a fat comment and if they wore glasses it would you specky so and so. Probably nothing against any of the above in particular just a little dope shouting out crap
Not everyone is on board, so yeah, on occasion you’ll get some comments. But also, 10 years is not a lot of time for such cultural changes. We need a generation of parents to upbringing their kids to not be hateful bigots. It’s a generational thing, not a “10 year” thing.
The culture wars aren’t helping any of this. I’m not sure marriage equality would pass by referendum now after a decade of divisive bullshit.
I remember we had pride flag wing mirror covers on the car, fairly inoffensive I assumed, and while on the motorway, someone cut us off dangerously, proceeded to rev, beep, gesticulate out the window at the flags, generally being awful, which was bad enough, but his young children in the back of the car were mimicking their fathers behaviour. It’s incredibly disheartening.
That period remains so vivid in my memory that I can clearly recall how I felt then and how much has changed since. Maybe it’s just the difference between being 20 and being 30, but I’ve noticed a shift in how I navigate being openly in a same-sex relationship. In professional or institutional settings — at work, with healthcare providers, or when doing things like getting insurance or buying a home — I feel far less anxious and more secure in being open. At the same time, I’ve become more hesitant about expressing affection in public, like holding hands, which I was much more comfortable doing six or seven years ago. Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have left the house without a “Vote Yes” badge — it felt important and empowering. Now, I’d be far more cautious about wearing anything that might invite a comment from someone. That sense of safety in visibility has changed.
Country voted for women’s rights and lgbt rights. Progress seems to be eroding away with the rise in right wing nuts and “arrivals” to the country who view gay people as a walking sin who should be punished.
I think it’s getting much worse and very rapidly so. An aspect of Ireland is absorbing MAGA talking points so rapidly it’s quite frightening. Where I notice it most is when you get stuck in a taxi with someone on a total rant — have had it now multiple times in Dublin and in Cork.
I’ve also seen horrendous, more so racist, incidents in Dublin, including recently a weird middle aged couple just hurling abuse at people — they got booted off by the security and gardai, but it’s as bad or worse than I’ve ever seen in cities abroad. I think you’d get a far heavier response in London for example to a lot of it than you do here. The security happened to be there that day but I’ve seen those incidents before where people aren’t really able to react.
I genuinely don’t feel very much like going on the Luas anymore after 3 incidents like that unless it’s unavoidable — doesn’t feel safe in the red line tbh.
Ireland has always had an issue with the roving street bully scumbag types, but now they seem to be tuning into MAGA and also the UK far right and they’re online themselves in bubbles too growing that. They also seem to live in a brazen bubble where there are no consequences to utterly obnoxious and weird antisocial behaviour.
The majority of society here will tell you stuff doesn’t happen and that everyone’s lovely — a significantly loud element most certainly aren’t.
The chattering classes here don’t address it and they keep returning to the same trotted out arguments that it’s being caused by lack of investment in communities and facilities etc etc etc
I don’t really know how you fix it but whatever we are doing it quite clearly isn’t working.
I think what always gets me is the shock that just because you have gained equality it’s expected that everybody is on board with that.
Women have equality yet don’t get equal pay and there is still misogyny out there.
Travellers have ethnic recognition but still get discriminated against.
Marriage equality was voted in yet gay slurs still happen.
While we can create laws against hate crimes and insitiging hate crimes, you can’t create laws that stop people having and voicing their opinions even when you’re against their opinion and it’s against a group of people. If that was the case no protests for and against abortion would have happened, nor would protests against the genocide in Palestine.
So unfortunately it is about turning the other cheek and having a thicker skin and ostracising those with these draconian beliefs in our society. We do that by not allowing them time on our mainstream media, creating a modules in school as part of the cspe syllabus but we do not create laws to silence opinions and words because that feeds into the narrative they want and actually helps grow those opinions rather than silence them.
I’ve heard from friends that they feel as though things have gone backwards, especially with teens and young adults.
Personally, I haven’t felt it, but myself and my fiancé between us are about thirty stone of man, I’d be very surprised if some wee shite had the balls to be homophobic to our faces.
We’ve definitely gone backwards in terms of how safe it is, there’s plenty of times when going on dates with people I’d be very comfortable holding hands with people who present feminine, but when I’ve gone on dates with more masculine presenting people it’s always a fear that you might end up in the wrong place at the wrong time cause of it, and that just dublin, in rural villages its pretty shite
I think we should be clear that stuff is definitely better than it was 10 years ago but that’s not the same thing as being good, or really equal.
Like we can take that marriage equality and the gender recognition act as huge W’s, but really there hasn’t been any since then.
There hasn’t been any reform of trans healthcare despite the system as we know it essentially forcing people to buy hormones online, there hasn’t been the promised ban on conversion therapy, we didn’t get a ban on hate speech, or any real expansion of critical services for LGBT folks.
I feel like we’ve been neglected. More importantly, as LGBT activists, we have been resting on our laurels since 2015. I think we showed the power of our campaign and got FFG on our side for that brief window so we thought they’d be on our side forever after that. Not the case.
We need to remember the government are never our friends and they’re never going to give us anything if we don’t make them do it.
Was the boy wearing full tracksuit and has a face that a drunk mother could love?(assuming he brought in some cash, or he’ll be spending the night outside)
In the past society shunned gay people and most individuals that you’d talk to privately supported them. Now society supports gay people and individuals diss them.
I will say there’s a group of antisocial people who just look for any excuse to hurl abuse at people, they don’t just target gay people they’d target someone they perceive as posh, someone who looks foreign, literally anything that they can use as a way to get at them. I don’t necessarily think it’s just a bigot thing, it’s an antisocial thing that’s growing especially in Dublin.
well that boy is a tit and not worth you spending an extra moment thinking about. eejits will be eejits in almost all things
Thats a journalist that has never seen anything but sadness and misfortune and things going wrong in any idea she has ever touched.
Ireland voted pretty unanimously to legalise gay marriage. I wonder if that same referred happened today, would the result be the same?
The bigots didn’t magically vanish into the void. They’re still present in society, and have brought up their kids with their hate too so yet another generation is poisoned by the bigtory. Then you have the online crap from the incels that, by driving misogyny, is also growing homophobia and transphobia.
Recently I photographed my friends wedding. We took thirty minutes away from the wedding to take some nice photographs, and someone yelled slurs from their car as they drove by. I honestly couldn’t believe it, the sheer disrespect in trying to bring down a couple’s wedding day. It rattled me in the moment, but they were champs and didn’t let it bother them. I’m a mostly closeted bi man, and things like that make me afraid to be more than mostly closeted.
People are scared of what they don’t know. Fear is the root of anger and hate. A good fucking education system would do us some good, but it would also make the people less divided – maybe we’d realise who the real criminals are (the rich, not immigrants…)
About 2 years ago I was walking down O’Connell Street a weekend or two before the annual pride parade. I walked past two lads, probably in their late teens or early 20s talking about it, and I heard one of them say he would “run them (the parade attendees) all down” if he could. I passed them then and they both audible scoffed/groaned, I had a rainbow print tote bag (obviously they might not have been reacting to that, idk). The thing that upset me the most was that these were young people wishing us harm, the age group who are generally thought of as being progressive.
I was 17 when the marriage equality referendum happened and at that point I still considered myself straight. Now I’m 27 and in a long term relationship with my partner. We do not hold hands or show any kind of affection in public.
“I’m against gay marriage because religion sa-” I do not care. I do not fucking care what your religion says.
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