What is in Kelvin's Head?

What the Irish Marriage Referendum Means

23/05/2015

The first thing to say is congratulations to all those in Ireland who have campaigned and voted for a change in the law that will allow same-sex couples to be able to enter civil marriage.

There’s something incredibly exciting about the fact that the first country to put marriage equality (or at least a step towards marriage equality) to the electorate is Ireland. Twenty years ago it would have been almost unthinkable that Ireland would ever enthusiastically embrace this change. It is clear that the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland has been changed forever by a litany of abuse cases and also by the positive changes that increasing secularisation in Western Europe has brought.

It has been nailbiting watching the referendum from this side of the Irish Sea. Particularly when one begins from a position of thinking that such a referedum should never happen in the first place. I agree with Seph who tweeted the other day –

Even if Yes wins, it is still wrong for minority rights to be put to a popular vote. #MarRef

— Sephlet of Josington (@sephistication) May 22, 2015

Seph is right. Whilst the excitement of the Irish vote has been palpable it has still meant that tens of thousands of people have had to live with a debate over whether they are really full citizens or not and walk streets in which placards and slogans opposed to their lives have been prominently displayed.

On the positive side, there have been few things on twitter more moving than the #hometovote hashtag. This referendum didn’t allow postal voting and so Irish citizens from all around the world travelled back to Ireland to cast a vote for equality. That stream on twitter has moved me to tears several times in the last few days. Growing up gay in an age where the presumption was that the majority world meant you harm, it is difficult to encounter such gold-hearted goodness without having an emotional meltdown.

There’s no doubt that this result will encourage those fighting for marriage to be open to same-sex couples in Northern Ireland. Fresh from the gay cake row, there’s a new coalition of politicians in that province arguing publicly against things that are to the benefit of their gay citizens. They appear to be even more dinosaur like the more decisions are taken around them that point towards the goal of equality.

One notable thing worth celebrating with regards to the Irish referendum is how the Church of Ireland has conducted itself. Significantly, there was no expectation that all their bishops would say the same thing and so we were able to hear very clear statements of support from several high profile members of the church, particularly the Bishop of Cork, the Rt Rev Paul Colton and the Bishop of Cashel, Ferns & Ossory the Rt Rev Michael Burrows. The two of them deserve to be hailed as heroes.

What a contrast from the Scottish Episcopal Church where the poison of conformity has overtaken any sense of collegiality amongst our bishops.

Bishops here need to remember that the word for those who take actions (or maintain silence) leading to things that are to the detriment of their gay clergy and congregational members whilst insisting in private that they are sympathetic is not hero but something far more visceral that Jesus had a lot more to say about than homosexuality.

But let us not dwell on that – this is Ireland’s day. A new Ireland too.

So many people have said that this vote represents far more to Irish citizens than just whether or not same-sex couples could marry. It re-establishes the idea in Ireland that the state is there for all Irish people.

Ireland has lost so much of its young talent to migration. Ireland like so many countries has lost so much energy and vitality to homophobia too. As we have seen young Irish citizens making their way back home to vote for a better world for those who live there, we’ve seen something selfless, compassionate and hugely inspiring.

I hope that as they’ve turned up to vote this week they’ve received céad míle fáilte – a hundred thousand welcomes on their return.

A hundred thousand alleluias are being sung for Ireland by everyone who wants a world where everyone is equal.

Go Ireland. Go into the future holding your heads high.

Ireland said Yes!

equality, ireland, Irish Referendum, LGBT, marriage

8 responses to “Assisted Dying – Why I’ve changed my mind”

BobS

16/03/2026

You lucidly illustrated an example of a family seeking to pressurise someone to influence the process of death. But what was possibly missing was the voice of the person nearing death. Where was their perspective, their reasoning? Assisted Dying starts and driven by the person dying. They are the ones who, with mental capacity, take those steps, if necessary, to expedite death at that final stage. They, together with medical experts, make those decisions.
The examples cited refer to a family desperate for a skiing holiday and your concern of funeral directors making money through direct cremations.
I fully agree with your desire for a better palliative care system. Having witnessed their work it is amazing. But that is another argument. To conflate the two dismisses the voice of those seeking assisted dying.
Your concern over assisted dying seems to be interwoven by a call for improved palliative care and a demise in direct cremations.

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1. Rev Owain Jones
  
  16/03/2026
  
  Respectfully, Bob S, I think you’re overlooking the one thing that struck me very forcefully from this incident. I’ve always felt profoundly uneasy at the likelihood – I’d say ‘moral certainty’ – that the voice of the dying will in some cases be influenced, even swayed, by the dying person’s assumptions, inferences or intuitions (correct or not) about the needs of those closest to them, and even their desires. These desires might not be articulated, or even correctly guessed – but they might, and as soon as the dying person is subject to them, they are, by definition, influenced in their decision. At that point, Assisted Dying can no longer be said “to start and driven by the person dying.” I’ve been there for a long time – but what I suddenly realized reading Kelvin Holdsworth’s post, was that there’s a much darker issue here, and it relates to a fundamental principle to which I’ve always adhered. Please bear with me, and entertain for a moment an analogy which you might consider to be extreme, and which I’d be appalled to hear deployed by the religiously fanatical opponents of Assisted Dying. It’s this. I have always been opposed to the death penalty for a number of reasons, but very prominent among them is that it takes to an extreme the testing of a fundamental principle of justice (which I know I’m modifyng here to make the analogy a better fit, and of course, you’re free to take issue with that): “It is better that a hundred guilty men go free than that one innocent person be punished unjustly.” I’m aware that there’s a very significant separation between that and this, but I don’t believe it amounts to ‘clear blue water’. Let me try and articulate my conviction in a reasonable way, for you to consider, even if you reject it. I think that there’s a huge danger inscribed in legislation which will, of a moral certainty, permit circumstances in which unwilling dying individuals give assent under pressure to the active premature termination of their lives. This holds true even if a hundred times as many individuals assent freely, and even actively seek, such termination. One of the things that always made me uneasy about the Vulcans was the assertion that “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”. There seems to me to be no way in any legislation to protect the needs and rights of the few in this issue. At the very least, I think that needs to be acknowledged openly by proponents of Assisted Dying. If we’re about to be taken across a Rubicon, I believe that everyone, on both sides of the decision, need to acknowledge that. (Incidentally, I completely agree with Kevin Holdsworth’s horror (I hope I’m expressing that fairly) at ‘Direct Cremations’ and the way they’re advertised. They seem to me to be open profiteering from the death-phobic culture in which we’re immersed. I fear that the impulses behind Assisted Dying as currently advocated may be a good-faith manifestation of the inability of society to look at the full actuality of human mortality and the relationship between life and death. I may be deluding myself, but I think I’d say that even if I were an atheist.
  
  Reply
  1. BobS
    
    17/03/2026
    
    Rev Owain, thank you for your response. I fear your analogy was stretched to fit your argument, and, apologies if my education lacked in this quarter, where the reference to Vulcans was applicable.
    If we are concerned that a very small percentage will be wronged, then many practices today should be stopped. The statistical error you describe will always be possible, albeit minimised as much as possible.
    The proposed law tries to cater for such concerns. What appears to be the argument against assisted dying is that it is not error proof.
    If a person who is deemed to have mental capacity with less than six months to live, with suitable medical provision, seeks to alleviate their suffering, and is capable of themselves administering the medication to ultimately ease that pain, then their voice has been heard.
    I also would hope that palliative care continues to improve but that is a separate argument, as are direct cremations, and now the cost of the funeral to families. These arguments are all used to conflate the underlying issue of assisted dying.
    
    Reply
2. Val Dobson
  
  16/03/2026
  
  You are wrong to connect funeral companies’ promotion of Direct Cremation with the push for assisted dying. Nowadays, many families simply cannot afford a “proper” funeral / cremation, and funeral grants come nowhere to covering the the costs. The funeral companies are simply responding to customer needs.
  
  Reply
  1. Kelvin
    
    16/03/2026
    
    I’m happy to speak out about funerals being too expensive. However, it is manifestly not the case taht funeral companies are simply responding to customer needs. If they did they would promote these as being about price. They don’t – they promote them as being about not causing a fuss, which is the point I’m making here.
    
    Reply
Nigel Kenny

16/03/2026

Thank you for your wise and persuasive words – may they influence MSPs to vote against the Bill.

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Chriatine McIntosh

16/03/2026

Thanks for this, Kelvin – I’ve been thinking more about this as contemporaries begin to vanish from this life.

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Helen Leslie

16/03/2026

Thank you Kelvin. I am someone who has spent the majority of my working life caring for people at the end of their lives. You said exactly what I would want to.

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