Quote of the Day

Other communities who have been oppressed – Jewish people, say, or Catholics in Northern Ireland – have every opportunity to work out the implications of their oppression in their early lives. They hear the stories; they have the books around them. As gay people, on the other hand, we grow up alone; there is no history. There are no ballads about the wrongs of the gay past, the gay martyrs are mostly forgotten. It is as though, in Adrienne Rich’s phrase, if you were gay, “you looked into the mirror and saw nothing.” Thus the discovery of a history and a tradition and a sense of heritage must be done by each individual, as though alone, as part of the road to freedom, or at least knowledge.

This is maybe why this same-sex marriage referendum campaign, the one we are going through now [in Ireland], has been so liberating for gay people and for our friends and families. It has allowed us to set out publicly and communally who we are and how we wish to be treated in our country in the future. It has allowed us to have a public debate with our entire nation about our need for recognition and equality. It has allowed us to speak openly about the terms of our love. The level of support has been heartening, encouraging, inspiring. After 2015, it is unlikely that there will be many people in Ireland who will not know about us, have a sense of how ordinary our desires are. Or see how normal and middle-of-the-road most of us are.

– Colm Tóibín
Excerpted from "Ireland's Same-Sex Marriage Referendum
and the Embrace of Love"
The Irish Times
May 14, 2015

NEXT: Singing Their Own Song in Ireland

Related Off-site Links:
As Ireland Heads to Vote Tomorrow, Valuable Last-Minute Wrap-Ups About the Irish Marriage Referendum – William D. Lindsey (Bilgrimage, May 21, 2015).
A Powerful, Collective Coming Out in Ireland – Colin Crummy (i-D, May 21, 2015).
Will Ireland Say "Yes" to Same-Sex Marriage? – Amy Davidson (The New Yorker, May 21, 2015).
Chastened Church Leaders Take Back Seat in Irish Gay Marriage Vote – Padraic Halpin (Reuters via Yahoo! News, May 18, 2015).
Reading the Same-Sex Marriage Polls in Ireland – Dominic Preziosi (Commonweal, May 21, 2015).
Ireland's Gay Marriage Referendum – Kate Lyons (The Guardian, May 21, 2015).
Why One of the World's Most Catholic Countries Might Approve Gay Marriage – Mo Moulton (The Atlantic, May 21, 2015).
Archbishop of Dublin Declines to Tell Catholics How to Vote in Referendum – Patsy McGarry (The Irish Times, May 20, 2015).
Irish Catholicism Can Adapt to a New Role – Oliver P. Rafferty, (The New York Times, May 20, 2015).
Ireland’s Catholic Church Lost Its Moral Authority A While Ago – Una Mullally (The New York Times, May 20, 2015).
Why the Bad Science of the "No" Campaign Shouldn't Sway Ireland's Voters – David Robert Grimes (The Guardian, May 22, 2015).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
•The Catholic Hierarchy's "Stupid Carry-On"
• Mary Bednarowski on the Power of Our Stories
• Daniel Helminiak on the Lesson of Jesus: "We Will Be True to God by Being True to Our Deepest and Best Selves"
• The Challenge to Become Ourselves
• David Whyte: "To Be Courageous is to Stay Close to the Way We Are Made"
• LGBT Catholics Celebrate Being "Wonderfully Made"
• The Gifts of Homosexuality
• The Many Forms of Courage
• The Many Manifestations of God's Loving Embrace
• Same-Sex Desires: "Immanent and Essential Traits Transcending Time and Culture"
• The Same People
• "Your Witness to Love is Key to Transforming Our Church"

Image: William Murphy.