Same Sex Marriage now legal in Ireland!!

Ireland Votes to Legalize Same Sex Marriage: This is really an amazing story. It never occurred to me that Ireland would vote to approve same-sex marriage. Growing up in the 1960s-early 1970s, I always thought of Ireland as a very conservative country, its mores directed by the values of the Catholic Church (which was true). Those same conservative mores had a heavy effect in my home town, Cambridge, Mass. I know that people think of Cambridge as a very liberal, but in the 1960s and early 1970s city politics were pretty evenly balanced between liberal and conservative voting blocs. Many Irish and Italian Catholics lived in the city, and many students went to Catholic elementary schools and high schools.

Gay pride flags in windows in Ireland (Source: http://boingboing.net/2015/05/22/ireland-votes-on-same-sex-marr.html).

While Massachusetts was the first state in the US to legalize same sex marriage, that did not mean that the conservative people who ran the local St. Patrick's Day parade wanted to permit Irish LGBT groups to participate. The Boston area is now very different than it was when I was growing up in Cambridge in the 1960s-early 1970s, but it is only this year, 2015, that the first LGBT group marched in the St. Patrick's Day parade. Two groups, Boston Pride and Outvets, a gay veterans group, marched this year.

Boston Pride marching in this year's St. Patrick's Day parade in Boston.
(Source: http://www.wbur.org/2015/03/15/gay-groups-march-at-last-in-boston-st-patricks-day-parade).

Outvets marching in this year's St. Patrick's Day Parade in Boston
(Source: http://www.wbur.org/2015/03/15/gay-groups-march-at-last-in-boston-st-patricks-day-parade)

Have a happy gay day, with plenty of green beer!