Black Thursday – France on Strike

In a move that I’m sure wouldn’t surprise many people (at least many people outside of France), this Thursday has been declared (by the country’s biggest unions) to be a national day of strike. Thus far, the groups set to strike will be (takes a breath):

The national train company, the Paris transportation company, the urban transport companies, the postal service, the French national telecommunications company, the teachers, the national electricity company, the French radio, the civil servants, the hospitals, the gas company, naval construction companies, the public employment company, the airports, French national television networks, the national French bank, the banks, the magistrates, the automobile manufacturers…

This is the list thus far. This also means that anyone trying to get to work will be unable to get to work, so whatever you do, don’t come to France this Thursday. Or Friday for that matter.

Speaking of which, my girlfriend and parents are visiting me in Paris this weekend. If I get there. Or they get there. Balls.

And of course all this comes on the same day that Ulster Bank ups and drops 750 jobs, and Iceland announces that it is selling Sigur Ros to fund its crippled economy.

Actually, for an interesting insight into Parisian life, take a look at A Year in the Merde, by Stephen Clarke. I borrowed it from Adrian and enjoyed it immensely.

By the way, the French are under the impression that every other country in the world strikes as much as they do. I really didn’t understand how much they strike before I got here.

Right, I might start plotting a walking route to Paris, just in case.

 

Stuckinthemilli.eu: Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

So, as you may have noticed, I have redesigned the blog. This was done, as I have mentioned in previous posts, to reflect the fact that I will be using the blog for a slightly different purpose from now on. In the past I posted exclusively about the civil partnership bill, my family and the various LGBT issues that I noticed. From now on, I want to use it on a much more regular basis, and want to blog about other things too. These posts will revolve around my life, food (I fricking love food), vegetarianism (yeah, I’m one of those folk) and anything else that pops into my head. I suppose this is all reflective of why I blog, and why I love the idea of blogging. Blogging can be a great way to get ideas out of your head and properly work them out.

With the new domain names, it makes it easier to tell people about the blog. You can send them to either stuckinthemilli.eu or conorp.eu. 

So then, more blogging and less dossing. Have a photo to celebrate.

 

Photo owned by J.D. Abolins (cc)

 

Results of poll

So, the results are in and have been counted. Based upon the poll in the previous post, the two new domain names I will be registering are:

• stuckinthemilli.eu (Stuck in the middle) – 42% and
• conorp.eu – 70%

What I think I’ll do is adopt stuckinthemilli.eu as the name for the blog, and then keep conorp.eu for a shorter and snappier offline address, so that people can find it easier. Both will direct to the same blog.

As for the changes to the blog, over the next few days I will redesign it, so that it can be used as a blog for both my personal life and for my posts about civil partnership and other same-sex family stuff. As always, if you have any suggestions e-mail them to me at conorpendergrast[at]gmail[dot]com or Twitter me.

Finally, the RSS feed is here.

Happy Thursday,

Conor P

 

Domain names and some changes

POLLS CLOSED. Results tomorrow.

 

Thanks to the wonderful people over at Blacknight, I managed to win two .eu domain names via their Twitter page! (If you’re on Twitter, have a go yourself by following them and watching their feed… but you have to be quick off the mark).
So, I thought I’d be semi-democratic and put it to a vote to decide what domain names to register. Since I have two to register, I decided to make two different polls. So, have a look and vote in each. Please.

All this is happening with a redesign of the blog in mind. Should be fun 😉 I’ll be making it more personal, and be posting more regularly.

Conor P

[edit: Voting ends next Wednesday 5pm French time 🙂 ]

[edit 2: More suggestions include sacrebl.eu and filmbl.eu. To vote for these two leave a comment below!]

 

Liveblogging tonight’s Questions and Answers 22:45 Irish time

As mentioned on Saturday, David Quinn will be on RTÉ’s Questions and Answers tonight. One of the topics up for discussion is Cardinal Brady’s recent remarks about the Civil Partnership Bill. There will be a liveblog available here, with the programme itself starting at 22:45 Irish time. Feel free to drop in and comment on the action as it happens, it should be fun! You can also watch it online from here.

 

In other news, “rebel cleric” (thank you, Indo) Father Iggy O’Donovan has expressed alarm at Cardinal Brady’s recent remarks, and has said that when it came to sexual morality and relationships, “clergymen often make the worst leaders possible” (see the article here). Nice to see that he understands the sense in keeping the Church out of the bedroom, and of not prescribing one family-type for everyone in the audience.

 

David Quinn on Q and A Monday evening!

Thanks to Ian for this information:

David Quinn of Iona Institute fame will be on RTÉ’s Questions and Answers this Monday evening. Other guests will include Olivia Mitchell, Maureen Gaffney and Ed Walsh. One of the topics they will be discussing is the Cardinal’s remarks on the Civil Partnership Bill (see here and here). What with me living in France I can’t be there, but if anyone can get their hands on tickets or volunteer to go on (and I’ll try and get some) and do some intelligent heckling and support the cause, I would be ever grateful. Please e-mail me on conorpendergrast@gmail.com to let me know either way.

In other news, I’ve added a way to subscribe to the blog by e-mail on the left, and a new section called “Fact Finder: My Family“. The latter will hopefully act as an info point for people about my family, and the former will hopefull encourage people to keep up-to-date with the blog.

 

Ubiquitous Election Post, David Quinn and other stuff from Ireland

It was a busy and very exciting week, as we all know, with the US Presidential Elections happening on Tuesday night. I was glued to the TV (until 4am, when I became cold and sober, at which point I went home) and pretty excited to see Obama winning. While we can never be sure what a politician will actually do, he does state support for “full civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples” and expanding adoption rights to give people fair consideration as parents, regardless of sexual orientation (see this pdf).

But of course, this silver lining came with a cloud for many Americans, with Arizona, California and Florida banning gay marriage (even though California and Floria both voted for Obama) and Arkansas banning gay couples from adopting children. Pretty bleak stuff, but sure the rights groups will be challenging the ban. Ironically, some have suggested that the increase in black people voting this year might have lead to the passing of the ban.

Back to Ireland, and the Catholic Church is again getting angsty about the Civil Partnership Bill.

“…Ireland looks set to repeat the mistakes of societies like Britain and the US by introducing legislation which will promote cohabitation, remove most incentives to marry and grant same-sex couples the same rights as marriage in all but adoption.”

Ah, if only he knew that if I was writing the legislation I would add in proper legislation to recognise families of same-sex couples. Ah well, at least earlier fears the government sidelining the Civil Partnership Bill due to the economic turmoil (of course, there is no recession) have been squashed.

And, following in the footsteps of Cardinal Brady threatening legal action when the Civil Partnership Bill is introduced, the ever-pleasant David Quinn has written another opinion piece, stating that he believes that the Government is launching a “direct attack on the special status of marriage”.

This got me thinking, why is it that opponents focus on the “institution” of marriage so frequently? An idea came to me today. Maybe the Catholic Church (in Ireland) has been feeling its grasp on Irish people slipping away gradually since the foundation of the State. Could it be that marriage is the final hold it has over society, and it will do anything in its power to keep from losing that power?

Or maybe it’s just that they don’t want marriage demeaned by giving it to the gays. Ouch.

PS: David, you erred in saying that there was a “lack of any real public demand” for civil partnership. To quote Moninne Griffith of MarriagEquality:

“It is high time that the lesbian and gay family unit, including children, are recognised and protected in Ireland. Indeed, 84% of the Irish population support civil partnership or civil marriage being made available to lesbians and gay men and an overwhelming 86% agree that children of gay and lesbian parents should have the same family rights as the children of married parents.”

 

My Agenda: The Language of the Same-Sex Family Debate

Wow, it’s been a month since I put anything online. I need to stay on top of this more.

For me, it’s important to understand the driving forces and emotions behind other people’s actions. As a result of this, and in the spirit of intelligent debate, I have looked at and come to understand most of the arguments against same-sex families, some of which I can sympathise with.

Some opponents fear that same-sex parents might be ill-equipped at raising children, while others feel that they would not provide adequate male and female role-models. For the time being, I will simply state that the evidence suggests that this is not the case, and I will deal with these subjects at length in a future post.

What annoys me, however, is the language sometimes used in the various debates. My encounter with a woman in a radio interview a short time ago (unfortunately the recording is no longer online) highlighted this for me. Two phrases in particular irritated me; “Same-sex family experiment” and “gay agenda”.

 

I’ll deal with the latter phrase first. The term “gay agenda” is, to me, somewhat ridiculous. It would be akin to saying that there was a slave agenda, a black agenda, or a women’s agenda, or that today there is a disability agenda. The various movements over the years have sought for the same things : equality and respect. It’s exactly what I’m looking for now, with the Civil Partnership Bill (And no, I agree, it’s not nearly good enough). All that my family and I desire is to be treated equal to any other family in the State.

And of course the words “gay agenda” bring to mind another phrase; “hidden agenda”. If you didn’t already  know it, let me share a secret with you: there is no plot for the homosexual community to corrupt the children and take over the world. Sorry, but it’s just not true.

Photo owned by fishermansdaughter (cc)

The other phrase, “same-sex family experiment” annoys me so because if my parents are seen as being the experimenters, then I am both the experiment and the product of the experiment. And who, honestly, wants people to think of them in the same way one thinks of a papier-maché volcano? I told my mother, Bernadette, about hearing this phrase, and she scoffed about it and said “It wasn’t an experiment, we just wanted to start a family”. This, I guess, is the crux of our story. My parents didn’t decide one day to see what would happen if they brought two children into their life. They weren’t looking at the variables and they haven’t sat down now and said “with Conor having survived until age 22 with no psychological scars, we can be 95% confident that he grew up in an environment as stable as a typical heterosexual family”.

 

Photo owned by xmatt (cc)

 

This family was started by a couple who were in love, and who decided to raise a family of their own. Is that so wrong?

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As always, your support and efforts are appreciated. From the humble comment to the supportive e-mail (conorpendergrast at gmail dot com) to an e-mail to the letters page of the Irish Independent or Irish Times, it all makes a difference. For more ideas, check out the What Can I Do page. And for everyone who has done something, much love.

 

A Musing About Something I Heard

I’ve been paying quite a bit of attention to the American presidential election recently, as it all heats up. And watching an episode of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, I had a moment of listening to Jon speak, and having what he says resonate deeply within me:

‘What he was really saying is: “I’ll make sure gay people can’t get married, and I’ll try and get Roe vs. Wade overturned.” Why can’t we have that conversation honestly like adults, and not pretend like we’re all talking this weird code language around each other?’

You could see him getting genuinely and visibly perplexed and angry as he continued speaking, and it reminded me of myself when I was having coffee with one of the other Erasmus students, Lisa, on Wednesday. We were talking about American politics, Irish politics, and in particular LGBT rights and climate change (my personal interests). I was getting incredibly worked up about the fact that regardless of how much time and effort you put into a campaign to achieve a change, it can all be crushed in a single moment.

Take, for example, Proposition 8 in California. In May of this year, the Californian Supreme Court overturned Proposition 22, meaning that marriage between individuals of the same sex was again legal or recognized by the state. Yay. Now, however, there is a movement to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. Boo. When Californians are voting in the presidential elections, they will also be voting on this. Looking at the summary of opinion polls (again on Wikipedia), it would appear that the measure might be rejected.

But that’s not the point I wish to make. The point is that so much time and effort is spent campaigning, spreading the word, getting people involved, making issues public, legislating, getting proper legislation and enacting legislation (never mind finding a partner to share the fruits of your labour with!) that to see that it could all be swept aside by small groups of small-minded people spreading rumours, myths, propaganda and lies is incredibly disheartening.

Actually, that wasn’t the point I wanted to make either. The point I actually wanted to make was about the sheer amount of political unspeak that goes on, the wishy-washy nature of politics and the apparent desire that politicians have to appeal to all people at the same time. As Jon put it:

“Why can’t we just decide it on the issues? My feeling is they’re fearful that their real beliefs will not be appealing to the general electorate.”

Do you get me?

Photo owned by jaycross (cc) 

 

Anyway, I was fretting over how long I was spending on a different post (that I still haven’t finished) and my trusted confidante advised me to use this as an outlet, which I am now doing. That post will be finished over the next few days, as a post-Late Late Show analysis. Wow, this has ended up as a long post.

 

As a total aside, Lisa and I have started another blog, aimed at alleviating any recession-related worries. It’s called DON’T PANIC, and is in stores now.

 

Late Late Show this Friday

Apologies for the lack of updates, I am currently studying in France for the year, and settling in has taken a lot of time and energy. In a wonderful turn of events, Daragh and I will both be appearing on the couches of the Late Late Show this Friday. It’s all on the basis of the media attention that we received about a month ago, and more specifically the Today with Pat Kenny show. It starts at 9.30pm on RTÉ One. We’ll be talking about ourselves, our family and the Civil Partnership Bill. It should be good fun, so make sure to tune in and show your support!

I hope to do another update soon comparing different countries around the world on the basis of recognition of same-sex relationship . Check back here within the next week, or just sign up to the RSS feed.