Ireland decides whether to legalize gay marriage

DUBLIN — Voters in once staunchly Catholic Ireland were deciding Friday whether to legalize gay marriage in what the government's equality minister called "a referendum like no other."

Opinion polls suggest the government-backed amendment favoring gay marriage will be approved. But gay rights activists expressed caution based on previous votes when anti-government sentiment and low turnout produced surprise referendum defeats. Voting ends Friday night but results won't be announced until Saturday.

Electoral officers reported stronger-than-usual turnout at polling stations in Catholic schools, church halls and pubs across this nation of 3.2 million registered voters. Some lines built up outside stations before the 7 a.m. opening.

Ireland has no system for mail-in voting, so residents from places like London, New York, Bangkok and Nairobi planned weekend trips home. Many documented their journeys on Twitter, often under the hashtags #HomeToVote or, for some of those in neighboring Britain, #GetTheBoatToVote. One posted a picture on a London-to-Wales train with travelers decked out in rainbow colors and balloons of the gay rights movement.

Voters questioned by The Associated Press as they left several Dublin polling stations demonstrated a clear generational gap. Those under 40 were solidly "yes," with older voters much more likely to have voted "no."

"You can give the gays their rights without redefining the whole institution of marriage. What they're asking for is too much," said Bridget Ryan, 61, as she voted with her border collie in tow at a Catholic parish hall.

The government's minister for equality, Aodhan O Riordain, cast his "yes" ballot and declared it the most important vote of his life. He took heart from signs of a strong turnout, since involvement by young, first-time voters was considered key for the measure to pass.

"This is a referendum like no other," O Riordain, 38, said in an AP interview. "There's a buzz and an anticipation of this like I've never seen before."

A second proposed amendment to lower the minimum age of presidential candidates from 35 to 21 was not expected to pass.

On the gay marriage question, leaders of the country's predominant faith, Roman Catholicism, have led the opposition, arguing that legalization would undermine marriage as a pillar of society and trigger unintended legal consequences in Irish courts, where adoption and surrogacy rights loom as legal battlegrounds.

Yet even within the church, a vocal grass-roots minority voted in favor, arguing that their bishops had no right to stop the state from managing civil wedding rules.

"A lot of practicing Catholics are voting yes, and it's no different in the clergy," said the Rev. Tim Hazelwood, a 56-year-old County Cork parish priest who told his flock from the pulpit at weekend Masses he was defying the bishops' line on the vote.

"We didn't get much leadership from our leaders. I was hearing cold and clinical arguments against gay marriage, and what they said didn't represent my view of Gospel values at all," said Hazelwood, a psychotherapist who counsels gay parishioners on how to cope in an often-unfriendly world.

He said he knows of at least four fellow priests who also voted yes and estimates that one in 10 did nationwide. "They would share my view that Ireland and the church have caused gay people a lot of unnecessary hurt and pain, and it's time for that to stop," he said.

A "yes" result would provide fresh evidence of waning church influence in a country that, in the 1980s, voted forcefully in referendums to outlaw abortion and reject divorce.

By the shores of Dublin Bay, 20-something campaigners from the Yes Equality lobbying group waved rainbow flags and held up placards urging morning commuters to "Vote for us." Cars honked back in approval.

The Students Union of Ireland, determined to spur students back to their often faraway home districts to vote, produced an app offering custom-tailored advice on the best transport links to take. Cab booking companies Hailo and Uber offered free lifts to polling stations.

Irish singer Hozier posted a selfie in which he held up a Yes Equality "I'm ready to vote" sign. "Flying in to vote. ... It's the most important thing you'll do. Don't forget!" he wrote.

Gay couples who hope to marry were keeping their fingers crossed. Many also expressed a sense of dread that the amendment might be rejected.

Anne Marie Toole, 34, and Dil Wickremasinghe, 41, proposed to each other five years ago while strolling on a Dublin pier. But they agreed to wait until Ireland legalized gay marriage, rather than travel to a country where the practice is already legal.

"We had options to move elsewhere and we said no, based on our belief and our trust that marriage equality would come to Ireland," said Toole, who is from a small town outside Dublin and came out to her parents and four siblings when she was 29.

They just this week had a baby boy, Phoenix, thanks to an IVF treatment at Dublin's first fertility clinic to serve lesbian couples.

As they took turns cradling the 5-day-old — Wikremasinghe is the biological mother, whereas Toole faces a potentially long wait to become the boy's legal guardian — they imagined what raising their boy in an accepting Ireland would be like.

"I would love for this referendum to pass," said Wikremasinghe, a Sri Lankan and Irish citizen. "Because then I I'd know that when Phoenix is old enough to go to school, or when Phoenix is playing in the park, and we are there to pick him up and to hold him ..."

She paused, overcome with emotion, wiped away tears and continued in a whisper: "I'd know then that he's not going to be viewed any differently than all the other kids."