Later this month is two referendum, one of which is for the full constitutional recognition of gay marriage. If it passes, it will be the first case of such equalisation that has been passed as the result of a direct ballot, and so far the signs are that it is likely to pass. At least it will in Dublin.
Before talking about non-traditional life-styles such as gay relationships, one has to define what constitutes a traditional life-style. Perhaps the nuclear family unit of a married house-owning single-earner couple with their 2.4 children and car in the garage. Maybe even throw in a Sunday afternoon spent at the local chapel.
For the under-30s, especially the “young” (i.e. under 25s), many aspects of the traditional life-style are now to all intents and purposes a thing of the past due to economic realities. Life-long renting, cohabitation, living with parents, and generally less-secure house-holds structures are simple necessities. These days even well-paid London graduate professionals are engaged in some shade of non-standard living, and as a result how people live is pretty much off-limits for criticism. Throw into the mix the greater mobility requirements for a lot of careers these days and it is little wonder tradition is seen as anachronistic.
Once non-traditional life-styles become something that is accepted without question, how they are conducted is considered an internal matter not to be interfered with. De-facto that means what people do to each other within the confines of their non-public life is also not for others to judge. As a result gay marriage is overwhelmingly accepted as a legitimate lifestyle within this age group. This allowance for individualism is also part of the parcel that many young people realise that they are on their own, and no support means no say in matters. All those grants and benefits the baby-boomers got are no longer available, so the general feeling is that the latter have no right of influence.
Personally gay marriage is not a big issue for me, and if allowed to vote I probably would not do so, but the No side have clearly framed it as part of a much wider socially conservative campaign. This is clear in the way they linked it to surrogacy, and this convinced me that the No side are not worth paying any attention to. Last time I voted in a referendum, it was not the proposal I looked at, but rather the ulterior motives of the mindsets behind the respective campaigns. The Yes side doesn’t exactly inspire me, but the No side seem to have completely lost the plot.
Some of the No campaign’s obvious beliefs are a bit rich as the church has been caught out a lot not practicing what it preaches. After raping boys and dumping babies in cesspools, the religious establishment has little remaining moral authority. The only mitigating factor is that few establishments do, especially to this generation there respect has to be earned from scratch rather than inherited.
Although I don’t agree with the reasoning, one proposal I have seen is to have all marriage-related legal stuff such as benefits hived off into (gay or straight) civil partnerships, with marriage itself being purely religious. Churches would be free to oppose gay marriages under such a model, but quid-pro-quo is that church marriages (gay, straight, polygamous, whatever) have no legal recognition or protection. I would personally be happy with such a model, but I don’t seriously expect any genuine move in that direction.