Sunday Drive: Danny Boy

As performed by the great Tom Jones on the Ed Sullivan Show, April 21, 1968:

 

BONUS: Where, when, and how this beloved song originated:

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Okay, So Just WHO Is Destroying the Traditional Family?

Breaking news out of Alaska: Noted Christianist, TV dancer, and unwed mother Bristol Palin is pregnant - and unmarried - again. And her righteous, God-fearing, Bible-believing, gun-toting, born-again mother says that is just oh-so-wonderful, and best of all, God is totally fine with it, too. Heck yeah! Jump ahead to the 3:20 mark:




Meanwhile in Ireland, that country's first same-sex marriage took place today as Cormac Gollogly and Richard Dowling, a barrister and a banker, tied the knot in County Tipperary, after 12 years as a committed couple, as reported by the Irish Times. All good wishes to the happy couple.




I could say more, but I'll let you fellas judge for yourselves which story is praiseworthy and which is just total bullshit.

Sunday Drive: Red Is the Rose

A lovely Irish folk song, as performed by the contemporary group the High Kings:

Irish Voters Approve Gay Marriage

Wonderful news from the Emerald Isle, where voters in yesterday's referendum approved marriage equality by 62 to 38 percent, with a turnout of 60 percent.  The crowd in Dublin reacts:




The Taoiseach, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenney, who endorsed a Yes vote, welcomes the change:




And a straight taxi driver's jocular comment has caused mirth all around the world:

Armagaydon, Begorra!

A sampling of videos, pro and con, on the marriage equality referendum to be held next week in Ireland.

First, a video in favor of gay marriage, by a straight ally:




Next, a serious anti-marriage ad and a satirical ad - guess which is which:






And a fuming, sputtering anti-marriage advocate gets a big laugh at a "people's debate" last January:




In the same debate, a lesbian makes an impassioned plea for equality:




While we're on the subject, you ought to read the moving commentary by Ursula Halligan, one of Ireland's top journalists, who just came out this week in the Irish Times.


And I'll end this post with a brilliant little clip about a lone straight family determined to maintain their righteousness in the apocalyptic world that will surely follow marriage equality:

ARMAGAYDDON

From Irish activist group LGBT Noise:

Irish Sports Star Comes Out

In case you haven't heard already, there's amazement and consternation in Ireland these days since hurling star Donal Óg Cusack came out of the closet.  Andrew Sullivan, who is part Irish, says it's a BFD over there.

Hurling, in Ireland anyway, has nothing to do with fraternity parties.  As near as I can make out, it's something like soccer, only played at breakneck speed with a tennis ball and hockey sticks.  The object of the game presumably is to put the ball between the goal posts while bashing your opponent's heads in en route.  That ought to be butch enough for anybody.

Eamonn Sweeney, writing in the Irish paper, the Sunday Independent:

[N]obody should underestimate the bravery it took for the Cork goalkeeper to publicly come out as a gay man in his autobiography or what a huge step forward this represents for Irish sport. We should also understand what a huge challenge it is to the bigotry and prejudice which remain against gay people in this society.

Perhaps there are people reading this column and thinking, 'Why is there such a big deal being made about it? Why do gays have to go on about their sexuality so much?' But it's not gay people who make an issue of homosexuality, it's straight people. Most straight men have, for example, been in a pub with a woman and, suddenly overcome by affection, leaned across and kissed her.

If a gay man did this with his partner, he'd be regarded as looking for trouble in most of the country's pubs. There's even a chance he'd suffer physical violence. Do gay couples walk arm-in-arm down our main streets with the same unselfconsciousness and freedom as straight couples do? They don't because straight people wouldn't stand for it. In most towns every pub is a Straight Bar.

This is the country Donal óg Cusack lives in. . . .

Sometimes we kid ourselves that we're tolerant because we condescend to accept flamboyant gay men in the Julian Clary/Graham Norton mould. But we have more problems with accepting our gay neighbours, our gay relations, the gay mechanic, the gay bricklayer and the gay farmer. That's another reason why it's such a big deal that Donal óg came out. Because one look at how the man plays the game is sufficient to destroy that old myth that gay men are uniformly effeminate, sissyish and, above all, instantly recognisable.

Even though he now faces vile shouts and homophobic abuse at games - his mum has had to quit going to see him play, it's too upsetting for her - Cusack says he hopes his story helps others still in the closet: