If Ireland brings into law the popular opinion that marriage can also take place between same sex couples; what is the flow on consequences?
1. Does it mean surrogacy and I.V.F. will also become a legal right?
2. Does it mean marriage celebrants within the Churches can be sued or found criminal for refusing to conduct a requested service?
3. Does it mean that the State must now recognise all same sex couples living together as de'facto and have the same rights as a man and woman living together?
4. Does it mean the homosexuals have the right to violate the conscience of person under law to objection to perform a service for same sex marriage?
5. Does it mean the term marriage cannot now be used as a specific biological state between a man and a woman and is now merely an emotional state of a love union between and two unspecified persons?
6. Does it mean social norms of "mother" and "father" cannot be used in birth certificates because gender no longer recognised?
7. Is the next step the legalizing of multiple partners; and the lowering of the age of marriage to pubity for girls

Josephus,
Look closely at the figures, they had a 60% voter turnout from an electorate of 3.2 million with a 62% yes vote, that's 37% of voters supporting constitutional change, it's not even close to a majority and far from a popular decision.
It's as we've said all along, in Australia where voting is compulsory and turnouts are high Gay marriage doesn't stand a chance of passing a referendum because it has nowhere near the levels of support suggested by polling done by pro Gay organisations. The only way Gay marriage can be implemented is by court decree as in the U.S or where the parliament has overruled the people as in Europe. Gay marriage is nothing but a single use political power play which has no real support from the wider community, once expended it's gone.

I forgot to add, Irish are also notoriously stupid and apathetic people, the country has been on life support since they joined the EU and soon enough they'll get the type of society they deserve, at which point they'll do their usual trick of mass emigration when it all falls in a heap.

The overthrow of social norms upheld by the Church was foretold in the 1930's by atheistic communism. The Church has been aware of this for almost a hundred years with the rise of atheistic socialism. The point being that there is no such thing as sacred it is a control mechanism by the Church.

Currently the N.S.W. Department of Education has the will to ban text used in religious education if it teaches marriage is only between a man and a woman. They prefer to teach a child can have two fathers or two mothers; that biological heritage is of little importance, heritage is about where one finds love that makes that person a parent.

What will homosexual marriage mean for Ireland?

From what I gather it won't mean much at all to
the average person. Who someone else marries
(as long it's between consenting adults) should
not really affect other people or other people's
marriages. And people who are in committed relationships,
love each other, and want to marry - should be allowed to
do so.

Apparently the government approved of this step - as did
a large percentage of Irish people. The ones who may have
problems would probably be the religious,
namely the Catholic Church. The church
has problems with homosexuality, with divorce, with re-marriage,
and so on. Add to that the mix of the sexual abuse crisis -
and the problem grows.

Interesting times ahead.

Foxy,

"Apparently the government approved of this step - as did
a large percentage of Irish people...."

Apparently a large percentage of the people didn't vote so we don't really know if they approved or not.

"The ones who may have problems would probably be the religious,
namely the Catholic Church."

Why do you assume that religious people in Ireland are all Catholics?

"The church has problems with homosexuality, with divorce, with re-marriage, and so on...."

The Church has no problem with those things, the Church has its rules and teachings on them, it is others who have the problems.