Hop for Visibility, Awareness and Equality

Today is International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia and I am proud and delighted to take part in the Hop for Visibility, Awareness and Equality. I hope you’ll enjoy my post on the aftermath of the marriage equality referendum in Ireland and that you’ll enter my give-away at the bottom of this post.
If you want to know more about the Blog Hop and the numerous blogs participating in this fabulous initiative, please click on the link below this image:  Hop for Visibility, Awareness and Equality.

****
As you may (or may not) know I live in Ireland. Today it is almost a year to the day since this little country I call home said yes to marriage equality in a referendum. With that in mind I decided this blog hop might be a good occasion to take a look at what happened after the result was announced.
I thought about it for a while and realised I couldn’t remember anything relating to the referendum result hitting the headlines since then. Yes, I’m fairly sure there was a report on the first same sex couple to tie the knot, but other than that, nothing sprang to mind.
While I do try to stay in touch with current affairs I’m the first to admit that I don’t catch everything, so I took to Google and entered ‘Ireland after the marriage equality referendum’ and found no stories other than those relating to the day the result was announced. Just to be sure I also tried ‘Ireland, marriage equality referendum aftermath’, but the search result was the same.
As far as I can tell nothing changed. I mean, of course things changed for those in same sex relationships. They now have an option they never had before; they have reached a level of equality that is still a dream for too many people around the world. But there hasn’t been a backlash, there have been no cases of civil servants refusing a couple their marriage certificate because they happened to be the same sex, the priests stopped talking about the subject, and there has been no stalling on the part of politicians. The referendum was passed, the law was changed and gay and lesbian couples could and did get married.
And that is because equality really isn’t that complicated. All it means is that those who are human all have the same rights and the same obligations. Equality doesn’t take anything away from those who were privileged before; it ‘only’ gives to those who were disadvantaged. I will never understand what drives people to deny others the rights they themselves take for granted. A world in which all are equal is a world with less strife and conflict and therefore a better place for all. It really is that simple.

**** 
Give-away:
I’ll be gifting an e-copy of either ‘Strangers in the Night’ or ‘Scenes from Adelaide Road’ to one of those who comment below. This hop runs from May 17th to May 24thso to give anybody who wants to enter the opportunity to do so, I’ll randomly pick a winner on May 26th. Good luck J