O’Sullivan Warns Against Marriage Equality Complacency

UCC students strongly voiced their support for Marriage Equality in last week’s campus-wide referendum with over 95% of voters in favour.However while UCCSU Equality Officer Rob O’Sullivan described the mass support for Marriage Equality as “incredibly reassuring to me, both personally and professionally,” he warned against students believing the issue would be easily won come May:“My biggest concern with this referendum, both before it and after it, was that it could make UCC voters feel complacent; that the job had been done.""The job is far from done. Recent [RedC] polls have shown support for Marriage Equality steadily fall, and the ‘No’ side has finally mobilised with leaflets in churches. This result is a fantastic show of support for the LGBT* community in UCC but it is not a sign that the fight is over; it is not a sign that we should down tools and call it a day. We have roughly 3 months until the ‘big referendum’ and we cannot waste a single moment.”

“My biggest concern with this referendum [...] was that it could make UCC voters feel complacent; that the job had been done."

Of the 2,635 votes cast, 2,501 called for the SU to support the national referendum on Marriage Equality, with just 120 voters opposing the idea. Voter turnout amounted to 15.1% of the valid student population in a referendum somewhat overshadowed by the wider debate about USI affiliation.However O’Sullivan was equally dwelling on the large positive signs of student support for Marriage Equality in the past month, after a Motley Magazine survey revealed that 86.2% of respondents intend to vote ‘Yes’, with 6.1% undecided.“What's fantastic now is that, with this referendum and the recent survey published in UCC, we have two very different metrics to measure the level of support for Marriage Equality in UCC, both of which are largely in favour of it.”