NOM's Self-Refuting Rationalization Of The Passage Of Marriage Equality In Ireland

It's a tough time to be on the wrong side of history right now. The side that constantly crows "Let the people vote!" lost 62-38 on Friday. Of course, democracy only matters to them when it goes their way. When it goes against them, it's not because a majority of people actually supported the position supported by a majority of people. It's because we're intolerant or something.

Take NOM's hilarious response. devtob has covered it already, but there's one particular part I want to pick apart.

They said:

This is a reflection on the increasingly secularized nature of Ireland, together with the utter abandonment of principle by every political party in the nation, all of whom endorsed the referendum. This, combined with intense harassment of any group or individual who spoke out in opposition to the referendum, made it difficult for opponents. Despite this, hundreds of thousands of Irish citizens stood to vote to uphold the truth of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Firstly, I don't understand where an abandonment of principle has occurred. Oh, that's right. An abandonment of their principle, their principle of bigotry and inequality, occurred. Of course, to them, that means an abandonment of principle in general, because no other principle exists, such as liberty, equality and justice.

After that, they say that "intense harassment" of the No side (while offering absolutely no evidence) made it impossible for them. But the very next sentence is them saying that "hundreds of thousands of Irish citizens" voted against equality. (They initially said millions, which shows how reflexive their thinking is, regardless of facts.)

How much harassment was there, NOM? Obviously, not much, because hundreds of thousands of people still voted against equality.

And also, NOM, you do realize that this was a secret ballot, right? You do realize that no one would know what side you voted for, right? Indeed, you've made this point before. You yourself have stated before that pressure on equality opponents leads them to conceal their stance, before secretly voting for it on election day. On May 15 this year, you reported on a Pew study on the different outcomes of phone and internet polls (emphasis added):

In that regard, an important new study was released this week by Pew Research Center that documents the extent to which the polling on gay issues could be off.

Pew found that there was a difference of 14 points on the issue of whether gays and lesbians experience "a lot of discrimination" depending on whether people were surveyed by an interviewer on the phone or whether they completed a survey on the web. In the case of giving an answer to a phone interviewer, 62% said that gays and lesbian face a lot of discrimination, but only 48% of people surveyed on the web say this. In fact, 52% of web respondents said gays do NOT receive a lot of discrimination.

The reason for this disparity, no doubt, is the "social desirability bias" factor that NOM pointed out to the Supreme Court: survey respondents are apt to give a phone interviewer the "politically correct" answer rather than risk being seen unfavorably by the interviewer. It's a key reason why polling on state marriage fights have typically understated support for traditional marriage by approximately 7 points compared to the actual outcome of the elections.

And yet, marriage still won overwhelmingly in Ireland. So obviously, that didn't happen here. So there was obviously no harassment without which the Yes side could not have won. So you can shut the fuck up about why you lost and just accept that it was because you are wrong, and we are right, and 1.2 million Irish citizens saw that.

Or, you can not. Could you actually not? It's a great source of entertainment.