Author Topic: Petition for gender-neutral marriage in Finland  (Read 3789 times)

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Offline Askold

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Petition for gender-neutral marriage in Finland
« on: March 19, 2013, 06:28:41 am »
Ok. So some time ago the finnish parliament decided not to vote on an act to approve gender-neutral marriage laws. This law would have made married gay couples equal to other married couples in every way. The act did not go forwards because they didn't get enough support in the parliament. (Despite the fact that over 50% of the parliament members claimed to support such law if they would be elected. Not the first time politicians break their promises.)

Today an internet petition for such a law opened and if the petition gets ovet 50'000 votes in six months our laws state that the parliament must vote wether or not to approve the law. They can still vote against it but the effect is that they would have to make their stance public. By looking at the voters and public polls the majority of Finnish voters support gender-neutral marriage law. (The term sounds a bit silly, but since it is not about making "gay marriage" or "hetero marriage" but just one set of laws that do not have any restriction on what genders the married couple must be this is an accurate name.) And if you look at the claims the politicians made then the majority of them also would support the law. But as was seen either they simply lied about their stance during the elections or they are too afraid to vote on such a "controversial" matter.

Either case, this petition would force them to choose a side. They would have to decide do they want to loose votes from the homophobes and ultra-religious or the votes of the majority of Finland.


Like I said, we need 50'000 signatures in the next six months. So far we have 36'000. 36k signatures in one day.

And this isn't just some "click a button on the internet" thing. In order to have your signature approved it must be digitally confirmed either trhough your bank (by signing in through the bank's verification system) or some other similar verification.

http://yle.fi/uutiset/same-sex_marriage_backers_seek_a_quarter-million_signatures/6543504

EDIT: As of now there are 58'650 signatures. I know that in the first few days we get everyone who has been waiting for this but I wonder how many signatures it gets in the end. Still, this already means that the parliament has to act now.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2013, 09:43:38 am by askold »
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline kefkaownsall

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Re: Petition for gender-neutral marriage in Finland
« Reply #1 on: March 19, 2013, 12:01:25 pm »
It has the signatures but can someone tell me if it allows for gay adoption since currently they do not have full adoption rights.

Offline Askold

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Re: Petition for gender-neutral marriage in Finland
« Reply #2 on: March 19, 2013, 12:32:18 pm »
It has the signatures but can someone tell me if it allows for gay adoption since currently they do not have full adoption rights.

Yes. The whole point of this is that rather than have a separate "gay-marriage" law we would change the law about marriage remove the demand that the marriage is between a man and a woman. Therefore married gay couples would get all the rights that married men and women have.

It would also make it easier for a gay couple to change their last name and transpersons would also benefit from this suggested law. At the moment if you go trhough
the operation and your "legal" gender is changed this would revoke your marriage (if you are married) and instead it would become a "registered relationship" the current separate-and-not-quite-equal version of a gay---marriage.
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline kefkaownsall

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Re: Petition for gender-neutral marriage in Finland
« Reply #3 on: March 19, 2013, 12:51:47 pm »
Good since I know a guy who is unsure about what gender he is there.  Sorry I see some countries where marriage has a higher support rate then adoption.

Offline Scotsgit

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Re: Petition for gender-neutral marriage in Finland
« Reply #4 on: March 19, 2013, 01:25:03 pm »
Askold, are any Finnish celebrities backing this?  Sometimes, politicians are more likely to listen to them if they want a popular vote.
I am serious, and stop calling me Shirley!

Offline Askold

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Re: Petition for gender-neutral marriage in Finland
« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2013, 05:23:46 pm »
I think there are some celebrities behind this. There is also a concert coming to support this cause and draw more attention to it.
Not sure if it's even needed, we've got 100'000 votes in less than a day and the website is down because it couldn't handle the traffic.
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline Scotsgit

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Re: Petition for gender-neutral marriage in Finland
« Reply #6 on: March 19, 2013, 07:39:49 pm »
I'm not always a fan of celebrities being involved in causes, but it can help sometimes.
I am serious, and stop calling me Shirley!

Offline Askold

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Re: Petition for gender-neutral marriage in Finland
« Reply #7 on: March 20, 2013, 11:35:32 am »
Tarja Halonen our previous president (The one that looks like Conan O'brien) twittered, asking people to sign the petition.

And in other news, back in my hometown Tampere someone swapped the papers for the petition so that people who didn't read the whole paper were giving their signatures to a petition demanding that we stop having swedish as a mandatory course in schools.

120k votes through the website. Paper signatures are not counted in that, so the total number is higher. Actually turns out that this is the first of these petitions ever to reach the 50'000 signatures required for the parliament to consider it!
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline chitoryu12

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Re: Petition for gender-neutral marriage in Finland
« Reply #8 on: March 21, 2013, 04:08:22 am »
I think it's a guaranteed win. Voting against LGBT equality in a nation that supports it is political suicide.
Still can't think of a signature a year later.

Offline Askold

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Re: Petition for gender-neutral marriage in Finland
« Reply #9 on: March 21, 2013, 06:46:43 am »
That is probably why the parliament members did not want to vote for it. They know that actually voting on it will make them lose some votes no matter which way they go. So no matter what they think, many of them are afraid to voice their opinion and just trying to pander to the both sides of the debate.

It's funny that they planned this huge campaign but got the required signatures during the first day, I guess they didn't know they'd get this much support. There's going to be a concert, there are celebreties and politicians gathering signatures and appearing at events to promote the campaign (The cynic inside me says that there is going to be a flood of people who will want to show their support now that they know this thing will pass. Otherwise they'd kept their mouths shut and avoided a "controversial topic" like this.)
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline chitoryu12

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Re: Petition for gender-neutral marriage in Finland
« Reply #10 on: March 21, 2013, 05:46:48 pm »
The cynic inside me says that there is going to be a flood of people who will want to show their support now that they know this thing will pass. Otherwise they'd kept their mouths shut and avoided a "controversial topic" like this.

That's how it goes. We're still working on civil rights for gays worldwide (much like we had to do it for minorities not long ago), and people either have friends who would go against them on the subject or they don't want to face a potential backlash and harassment from "supportin' those fags!" The good thing about the laws around this petition is that it brings the controversial subject to the public eye and makes it a now-or-never vote for everyone involved.

Unfortunately, petitions over here have essentially zero weight.
Still can't think of a signature a year later.

Offline Askold

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Re: Petition for gender-neutral marriage in Finland
« Reply #11 on: March 22, 2013, 03:33:02 am »
Well this petition is part of a new program that will force the parliament to vote on any cause/proposition that gets over 50'000 votes. Much like the white house petition USA has, but rather than just requiring a response this time they must actually vote whether or not to approve the subject. So even if someone gets 50k votes for something crazy or stupid they can just vote no and that will be the end of it. This petition has already had some interesting effects.

Anne Holmlund (coalition) from the committee that prevented the gender-neutral marriage suggestion from going further is apalled at this new development. She complains that the goverment is already busy and if getting signatures is this easy they might get flooded with new proposals. Also she is apalled that the voters can just suggest any ideas, these voters are forcing the parliament to consider things that the voters want them to consider,  even if they go against the plans the goverment has agreed upon!

And this is bad because... Having the goverment be influenced by the will of the people goes against what democracy stands for?

A friend of mine also pointed out two things about this:
a) The signatures on the net are coming from the people who are passionate about this. Most of Finland is ambivalent. They might not be active enough to go out of their way to sign this but he doubted that they mind if they mind if someone comes with the papers and asks for a signature.

b) One of the things with the biggest effects will be that gay couples can put on their resumee/job application that they are married. You know rather than saying that they are in a "registered relationship," in a perfect world this should not matter but if there is an employer who is discriminating people because of that it does make singling gay couples out much easier.

EDIT:

Just an update because I'm so amused that the rhetoric used by the people against this petition is so similar to that used by people against gay-marriage in any other country.

-All gays are pedophiles: "don't give kids to pedos!"
-A child needs a mother and father: "Why won't somebody think of the children." Any study that disproves this claim is declared to be false but they on the other hand seem to like this study: http://www.spuc.org.uk/campaigns/ssmsub20130301 Which is incredibly biased as can be seen right from the introduction. (Well at least it is current. NO wait, that makes it worse "scientific" study with such a bias in 2013!) There are people hwo outright say that they would accept all the other changes except the right to adopt as a couple.
-Homosexuality is a disease: "The best decision Hitler made was to annihilate homosexuals from Germany, it is a pity that he lost." Or other variants on how homosexuality is a disease and back in the good days the cure was to beat them untill they "got better."
-Homosexuality is a disability: This claim is used as a starter for a demand that all GLBT (some only talk about gays/lesbians but some generalize to all GLBT) get stripped of their voting and legal rights to make decicions, then get taken to a asylum to be "cured form being gay."
-Bible/God is against gay marriage: Any claims against are simply ignored, such as saying that marriage wasn't a christian rite untill 1500's (or was it 1400's)  or talking about the other definitions of marriage in the bible.
-It is unnatural: Usually complaining that gay couples can't procreate. In these claims having children is the only acceptable reason for marriage. Pointing out to studies about homosexuality in other species will get you funny results.
-HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA IS DESTROYING SOCIETY: I've seen one american magazine which supposedly had this agenda being brought up a lot.
-Slippery slope: All the usuals polygamy, zoophilia and child brides. One person actually defended his claim by saying that he is not making an "sloping ground" argument but merely pointing out that if we "redefine" marriage then there is no argument against forbidding three or more consenting adults from getting married. Well duh.
-The signatures are fake: They don't seem to believe that the support is real since "gays and lesbians are only 1% of the population" If you point out that all of these signatures use a digital verification such as the ones you need to access your bank account through net they start claiming that this is not enough since anyone can hack those...

I could probably submit some but the only ones in english are from youtube.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2013, 01:21:40 am by askold »
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline Askold

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Re: Petition for gender-neutral marriage in Finland
« Reply #12 on: March 26, 2013, 01:31:15 am »
Apparently editing a post does not make the topic look like it's been refreshed.

Also, these two I found particularly fun:

-"No other countries in the world have gay-marriage since all laws come from the bible" when you point out that some do, including the other nordic coutries, you get "just because everyone else is doing it does not mean that we should." even though the original argument basically was that. And horribly inaccurate in its facts.

-"This is not about equality, equality/discrimination is only between genders and if we accept that a man and another man might not have equal rights / might face disrimination form other men then the whole argument will collapse." Any attempt to point out that, for example, slaves didn't have equal rights will be responded with "that has nothing to do with this" and accusation of being childish and pretending to be a victim.

EDIT: HOLY CRAP! Archbishob Kari Mäkinen gave his support to this cause this morning on TV!

This is going to cause a shitstorm in the fundie circles.


This guy right there. In the interview they were first talking about helping the poor, helping those who are alone, discussing faith and humility... Then he drops the bomb. Not only does he support GLBT couples being equal to hetero couples in the eyes of the law, he actually said that the church has traditionally considered marriage to be between man and woman but if society is changing the definition of marriage then the church should consider it as well.

EDIT2: This got confusing, now the assistant of the archbishob has put out an official statement saying that Mäkinen did not in fact show support to gender-neutral marriage act. Apparently the archbishop merely wants that homosexual couples are "treated equally by the law in every way" but this is not the same as "making a statement about the marriage law."

Sounds like damage control made poorly. Either way this is getting interesting.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2013, 08:05:10 am by askold »
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!