Ireland will hold its first national referendum on gay marriage this Friday, marking a big change for the country. Campaigns to vote for "Yes" have been plastered all over Dublin, while shopping districts and commercial sites have also been decked with colorful banners and flags, as polls project the referendum would easily favor same-sex marriage.
The referendum has been in contention for the last four years, with Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore calling for a change in the "civil rights issue of our generation" in 2011, according to The Independent. The Irish government, including Prime Minister Enda Kenny, would like the law confirmed and passed since Ireland's constitution requires the vote of the public for its amendments.
"There is nothing to fear for voting for love and equality," Kenny said while speaking on television this week, RT reported.
The vote is a big deal for the predominantly Catholic country, which has rejected amendments to divorce and abortion in the past. But while the church in Ireland has been keeping quiet, only serving reminders that gay marriage would be an injustice, there are still some traditionalists who are more open about their belief that a "No" should win.
"This whole referendum thing stinks from hell," said local Mary Delaney, according to The Telegraph.
"This thing is messing up the whole of Creation, and the culture of sex is so strong in our society today that it's impossible to protest," she added as she left the church while wearing a sticker that said "Vote No to Protect Marriage."
"Everyone has been misled about this," said another local, Tom Maguire, USA Today reported. "The government, the media, celebrities, they are all on the 'Yes' side," he said, citing that the amendment is going against religion and the constitution.
One such celebrity supporting a vote for "Yes" is Hollywood superstar Colin Farrell, who has a brother who married his life partner outside of Ireland.
"The fact that my brother had to leave Ireland to have his dream of being married become real is insane," Farrell wrote in a letter to Ireland's "Sunday World" paper in 2014, according to Vanity Fair.
Pollsters put the numbers in favor of "Yes" at 58 percent, while 25 percent are projected to vote against the referendum, RT reported. Seventeen percent of the voters are still undecided.
