Shreds of Decency
April 9, 2015 7:03 PM   Subscribe

Next month, Ireland will have a national referendum on marriage equality. Those opposed to marriage equality have been playing quite nasty - distributing flyers that claim gay people have a greater risk of cancer or alcoholism, or that they are more likely to harm any children they adopt. So Daintree Paper, a Dublin stationer, decided to fight back - with its Shred of Decency campaign, which collects the offensive flyers and turns them into confetti.

The Daintree shop encourages people to send them any such flyers they receive, or to drop them off at the shop - where staffers will turn them into colorful heart-shaped confetti. The confetti is then doled out into packets and resold for five pounds; all proceeds go to support Ireland's marriage equality campaign. Manager Nichola Doyle reports that since starting the program on Tuesday, they've already made 500 packets, and received orders from across the UK, and as far away as the United States and Australia.

People outside Ireland who don't have a copy of the offending flyers can also contribute to the "raw material" via Twitter, by using the #shredthistweet hashtag when they respond to any anti-gay sentiment they see online.
posted by EmpressCallipygos (19 comments total) 26 users marked this as a favorite
 
D'oh - Shred Of Decency's campaign web site is here.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:05 PM on April 9, 2015


I assume given the master intellects behind the anti-marriage-equality campaign and their obvious desperation that this is a sure bet in favour of marriage equality?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:36 PM on April 9, 2015


Aw, that's a lovely idea!
posted by rtha at 7:44 PM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


Personal note - I figured that if I placed an order today, I'd probably get it by the end of the month - right when the Supreme Court in the US is due to rule on marriage equality here. And if they rule on marriage equality at the national level - what better way to celebrate?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:04 PM on April 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


The leaflet claims voting for same-sex marriage is like voting for Sharia law because it is 'giving in to a minority'

Whereas giving in to a religion is...?
posted by Sys Rq at 8:04 PM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Well played, Daintree Paper; well played.
posted by acb at 8:05 PM on April 9, 2015


I wish someone had done this during prop 8.

fyi the US Supreme Court argument is April 28 w a ruling later maybe in summer.
posted by oneear at 8:19 PM on April 9, 2015


Whereas giving in to a religion is...?

Freedom from freedom.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:06 PM on April 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


Generational abuse by the Church has taken its toll. I do not find it surprising that boys abused by Priests and girls by Nuns would grow up to be hateful of same-sex equality. It doesn't surprise that a noticeable number of them would be so mean, either: Ireland was deeply wounded by the Church. It's a wound that is going to ooze out into public behaviours, it will.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:19 PM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Of course, one hopes that empathy and love will carry the day, and that the hurt people find a healthier self.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:22 PM on April 9, 2015


I wish that in humans being hurt by something led to the rejection of it more often. But it never works that way.
posted by bleep at 11:29 PM on April 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I figured that if I placed an order today, I'd probably get it by the end of the month - right when the Supreme Court in the US is due to rule on marriage equality here.

I think you mean, when SCOTUS is going to hear arguments about marriage equality here. They won't issue a ruling until later in the year, probably June or July.
posted by hippybear at 12:48 AM on April 10, 2015


Those opposed to marriage equality have been playing quite nasty - distributing flyers that claim gay people have a greater risk of cancer or alcoholism, or that they are more likely to harm any children they adopt.

After 25 years of being a fairly outspoken out (at times fairly militant) queer in the US, saying these things about gay people, whether in person or in print or through the media, feels somehow actually like some of the mildest negative things I've ever heard about gay people.

(And, I'm not going to do the research right now to find the citations but I know there is research out there that states this pretty directly)... gay people ARE at greater risk for alcoholism. And all kinds of other forms of self-medication, because living in a society where people openly express hate about your very existence leads to all kinds of psychological damage that drives a desire to numb out all the negative bullshit that you encounter EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY.

Even in this supposed new age of gay rights, it goes on. Every Single Fucking Day. It's not even subtle, it's often blatant, and it's often done without even a blink of an eye. Andy Humm (from Gay USA, an excellent weekly news summary show that is worth seeking out) points out all the time, "It doesn't matter what the laws are -- people still hate us".)

So tired. So very very tired of all this.
posted by hippybear at 1:01 AM on April 10, 2015 [15 favorites]


Generational abuse by the Church has taken its toll. I do not find it surprising that boys abused by Priests and girls by Nuns would grow up to be hateful of same-sex equality. It doesn't surprise that a noticeable number of them would be so mean, either: Ireland was deeply wounded by the Church. It's a wound that is going to ooze out into public behaviours, it will.

I don't really think it's that. Priests and bishops have been telling people being gay is wrong and bad and against god for decades here. The abuse coming to the fore has, if anything, made people say 'Fuck that, you people are sick, and out of touch and shouldn't be talking about this sort of thing, and if you do talk about it, we shouldn't be listening'.

From my experience of Ireland (I'm 40 now, lived here and been atheist all my life and grew up in a catholic school etc., people believed what the church said without thinking about it, and only in the 90s when the paedophilia and corruption came out to some extent did that change.
posted by Swandive at 1:23 AM on April 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


> They won't issue a ruling until later in the year, probably June or July.

The last decisions of the term will handed down the last week of June, right before Pride (for places that celebrate on the traditional last Sunday). Then the court is out of session until October.
posted by rtha at 8:18 AM on April 10, 2015


Generational abuse by the Church has taken its toll. I do not find it surprising that boys abused by Priests and girls by Nuns would grow up to be hateful of same-sex equality. It doesn't surprise that a noticeable number of them would be so mean, either: Ireland was deeply wounded by the Church. It's a wound that is going to ooze out into public behaviours, it will.

Yes and no. There's still a lot of residual fumes to burn off (see: abortion), but the Catholic Church has a MUCH lesser role in Ireland since all that came out. People might generally have a cultural and/or political attachment to being Catholic, but the Church itself has largely lost its moral authority. That these leaflets cast their homophobia (and xenophobia) in a religious light will probably hurt the message more than it helps.

What's more, let's give the Irish people some credit. They know the difference between homosexuality and pedophilia, and they know that the church abuse (and especially its going unremarked upon for so long) was largely the result of sexual repression, not sexual liberation.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:08 AM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Pride in the USA this year is either going to be wilder than ever, or Stonewall II.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:52 AM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'll have confetti either way.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:56 AM on April 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


The RCC is on Irelander's shitlist, but that doesn't mean the injuries have healed. What people internalized as children, both through abuse and church programming, is still there, and that's what oozes out as hate.
posted by five fresh fish at 1:55 PM on April 10, 2015


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