Hello again /christian/,
Romanianon here.
As you may have noticed from a couple of posts done in the past year:
-a massive social initiative managed to gather enough votes(3 mil) to try to change the Constitution to explicitly say the family is between a man and a woman;
-we have an utterly corrupt gov that tried to pass laws to eliminate prison sentences for embezzlement of public funds.
Well, those 2 issues have been merged in a quite ugly fashion.
Basically, the anti-gay marriage referendum got passed through, but partially in an attempt by the ruling party to distract attention from the massive issues it's facing.
Now, the thing is, it's not going to be another Ireland.
The pro-LGBT crowd knows it can't win, the culture war is too stacked against them.
So, they've resorted to spreading bullshit and confusion to prevent the minimum quota of people(6 million) from attending.
Among those tactics are:
a)"the whole thing costs too much, when we have way bigger needs. that money could be used to make hospitals and roads, so stay home in protest". Telling them that these costs are LITERALLY nothing(0,07%) compared to the losses suffered year-by-year due to corruption is like talking to a brick wall, since actually getting to the root of that is hard and needs actual work, so it's easier to bitch about an easily identifiable cost, even though it's pocket change.
b)the ballot paper, by law, contains the phrase "do you agree with the constitutional change, as approved by the parliament?". Now, they've used that ambiguity to imply that the change you are voting on are the pro-corruption laws, so stay home. Despite the fact that that makes no sense, and wouldn't be physically possible, anyway, since said laws aren't even in the Constitution, to begin with.
c)domestic violence and orphans exist, so everyone who supports it is for the memed into oblivion traditional family, sarcastically described as drunk, wife-beating rednecks on welfare(see last pic), so stay home.
d)"This is only the first step. The group behind this initiative wants to bring Christian Shariah Law to this land, or something".
And of course, the mandatory comparison to Handmaiden's Tale, since nowadays, that shitty book and show has shorthand for any mouth-breather to imply any non-progressive social change is gonna result in Saudi Arabia(just like 1984 is invoked way out of context for some idiots on the other side of the spectrum).
e)other crap i can't remember atm.
Now, on the other hand, the anti-gay-marriage crowd has shown remarkable organisation, spreading pamphlets, banners and graffiti encouraging people to vote, everywhere.
So, pray this fiasco ends up well.