Ireland could make history this week by becoming the first country to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote.
‘Under the Irish Constitution, the proposal is that any two people should be able to marry in accordance with the law regardless of their gender,” Colm O’Gorman, chief executive of Amnesty International Ireland, said on Wednesday’s Rundown.
According to a recent Irish Times/IPSOS poll, 70% of Irish voters favored same-sex marriage. But even though polls have shown increasing support to the proposal, Friday’s results may or may not mirror these poll numbers. “These polls and referendums in Ireland are very often decided by turnout,” O’Gorman said. “We usually don’t get a high turnout.”
He added, “The question is: which side would be more motivated to vote? Will it be those who are strongly opposed to the proposal? Or those who feel that this is an issue that is basically centered on the question of equality, fairness, and building our republic based on those kinds of founding principles?”
Other countries in Europe have legalized same-sex marriage through legislation and court decisions, but never through popular vote. But Ireland presents a different case, O’Gorman notes, pointing out that the Irish Constitution can only be amended by a referendum.
Voters in Ireland will head to the polls Friday.
Nicole Acevedo
I am a bilingual national reporter specializing in issues affecting Latino communities in the U.S., the Caribbean and Latin America. Experience I have produced hundreds of stories across digital, radio and broadcast platforms throughout my career — reporting on everything from elections, natural disasters and immigration to pop culture trends, social justice issues and breaking news. I'm best known for my coverage of the crises affecting Puerto Rico, including its reconstruction process after Hurricane Maria, the island’s financial crisis and more. After graduating from the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University with a bachelor's degree in broadcast and digital journalism in 2016, I joined the inaugural cohort of students who helped launch the Spanish-language bilingual journalism master’s program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Awards I was a 2024 finalist for the NAHJ/University of Florida award in investigative journalism for my reporting uncovering the challenges Puerto Rican families face in caring for their elders, given that the island’s population is aging faster than most places on Earth and fragmented by migration. I served as the lead reporter and writer of NBC News' 2022 Hispanic Heritage Month project “Who’s Latino? Amid growing numbers the definition is expanding,” which was awarded an NAHJ Ñ Award for best Latino issues story for print/digital.