Steen described the outcome as an “expression by the Irish people of gratitude and of love — gratitude to women for the work that they do in their homes that is often unseen and unsung.”
“Gratitude to mothers for the unique and irreplaceable role that they play in their children’s lives, and in the lives of their families, and a recognition of the special place that marriage has in our constitution and that they want to retain there,” she added, speaking to the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, at the national ballot count center in Dublin Castle.
Speaking to reporters March 9, Varadkar said he was disappointed by the results. But, he acknowledged, “the people were asked questions, the debates happened, the arguments were heard.”
“The public comprehensively took the view they did not want to make changes to the constitution that we proposed. We accept that we respect that, and we take responsibilities for the results,” he said.
The referendums were held to coincide with International Women’s Day.
Quinn, who is the director of the pro-marriage think tank The Iona Institute, told the Register that “the government asked voters to remove the word ‘mother’ from the constitution and they answered with a resounding ‘no.’ They also rejected by a huge margin the attempt to foist the extremely nebulous term ‘durable relationships’ on the constitution.”
He insisted that “the government must now do more to allow mothers to stay at home with their children if that is their wish. This must include ending the current favoring of day care over home. Instead, the government should give the money allocated towards day care directly to mothers of young children so they can spend it either on day care or to make it easier to stay at home according to their wish.”
Building new alliances
The weekend results were a welcome bit of good news for social conservatives who previously have been on the losing end of recent referendum campaigns.
Adopted in 1937, Ireland’s constitution has been subject to proposed amendment 40 times, with 20 of those proposed amendments occurring in its first 63 years and 20 more since the year 2000.
In 2015, Ireland became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex civil marriage by way of a popular vote, when the constitution was amended by 62% in favor to 37% opposing. In 2018, voters opted to remove the right to life of unborn children from the constitution, legalizing abortion by a margin of 68% to 33%.
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Sen. Rónán Mullen — an independent member of Seanad Éireann, the upper house of the national Parliament — who campaigned against the amendments, said he was gratified by the result.
Asked by the Register if he felt the result could be the beginning of a revival of a conservative movement, he said: “You would hope so.”
However, he said in the current climate it was important for conservatives to build a wider alliance.
“In this referendum defeat there was an unusual new coalition between what would be termed people with a traditional outlook on social values and people with a broader social outlook,” Mullen said. “There are many people who find common ground in the need to challenge some of the dangerous new ideologies around gender, who don’t necessarily share the same point of view even on issues as important as abortion.”
“It would be a great thing if there was a new front in politics which was going to at least try to put a stop to some of the damage that the ‘woke’ agenda is doing within government,” he said.
There are some signs that even some members of the government itself share this sentiment.
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