God you’re an idiot. I pray for the day stupid Americans will stop telling other countries about their own history.
How are you arguing that Ireland is backward because it’s maternity leave laws are not as progressive as Nordic countries on one hand, and then on the other arguing the US is most progressive when you don’t have any maternity leave laws. By your own logic the US is a backward socially conservative pretty much developing country (which, I lived there for two years and I would agree with this in a lot of respects).
It’s not a specious claim, it was newsworthy worldwide when it happened because it was a historic way of voting in a very controversial change to law - the way we did it means the majority of the population voted for gay marriage, rather than a few members of the government deciding. This was noteworthy. You ignore the fact that in many US states the population greatly opposed this, and gay marriage was still banned in fourteen states until it because legal nationwide in the US. These states still opposed gay marriage when this happened. It was legalised in the US under three months before gay marriage was legalised under popular vote in Ireland. I would argue that the vast majority of a country voting in a new law means an awful lot more than 14 huge states basically having to take it on against their will. What does it matter if your particular progressive state legalised it two years before us?? That doesn’t make us some sort of backwards socially conservative country by comparison. By that logic Washington was socially conservative two years before us. Two years means nothing in history - the people who voted gay marriage in were the same people supporting it two years before that, it didn’t come out of nowhere.
Again, backing up the fact that you’re not qualified to talk about Ireland, you’ve mixed up our “prime minister” (our Taoiseach, come on now it’s not that hard) and our presidents. We’ve had two female presidents, one serving two terms (which is 14 years), and America has had none. You can’t excuse this with your shitty little governors - they are equivalent to our TDs. And we have had very very many female TDS. Furthermore, can you imagine an openly gay son of an immigrant with a public male partner ever becoming president in the US?? It’s news to you guys when a gay person even becomes a local representative.
You are saying Ireland has historically been considered poor by European standards, but you’re talking shit. We can all say whatever we want buddy. How the fuck do you know how Europe considers us?? You very clearly know little to nothing about Europe so I’ll thank you to stop telling me how Ireland is perceived here when you have no possible way of knowing that. Ireland has the EUs most progressive tax system (does the most to reduce inequality), and this is backed up by statistics. Again, from a simple google search;
“Hard as it might be to be believe, with a GDP per capita of $48,786 (approximately €42,820) Ireland is considered richer than countries such as Canada, Australia and Germany on a list published on the Global Finance website this weekend.”
“In terms of GDP per capita, Ireland is ranked as one of the wealthiest countries in the OECD and the EU-27, at 4th in the OECD-28 rankings.”
“Ireland ranked no. 9 in most progressive, socially tolerant and environmentally friendly countries in the world: https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.insider.com/the-worlds-most-tolerant-progressive-and-eco-friendly-countries-2017-1%3famp “
A ranking of the 20 most socially progressive countries in the world: (IN THE WORLD and Ireland is number eleven. Come on man, it is not hard to find this proof): https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/social-progress-index-progressive-countries-medication-sanitation-freedom-tolerance-uk-scandinavia-a7803056.html%3famp
“Europe was the continent which fared the best with 11 out of 14 countries entering the ‘very high social progress’ division. This includes Ireland entering in at number 11 and the U.K. at 12.”
I’m going to come back to my earlier point that you know nothing about Ireland aside from your stereotypes that we’re a poor, backwards, religious country. Americans refuse to acknowledge the social change in other countries - everyone stays the same in their eyes because they don’t learn world history, just American. So how we are actually considered in Europe: one of the richest, most socially progressive, tolerant environmentally friendly countries in the world with one of the most inclusive and best benefits system.
I’m going to give you some advice; it’s very very obvious when people talk about shit they know nothing about. Please stop embarrassing yourself.
I’ve put enough effort into trying to educate you and I can’t imagine you’ll take this to heart because you’ve been happy living in your ignorance until now, so I won’t be replying again. So, again, stop speaking on our behalf when you don’t know your arse from your elbow.