There is an interesting clip on YouTube [1] of the late Adrian Hardiman on RTE on the day of the count for the 1983 pro-life referendum. Hardiman (RIP) will be a sore loss to the Supreme Court because he was that very rare thing in Irish public life; a classical liberal who believed in limited government. Back in 1983, he was a leading opponent of the 8th amendment. The amendment was, of course, passed by a two to one margin.
But on the day of the count, Hardiman, like Mary Robinson, declared that the No side in the campaign had won a “moral victory”. His reasoning; the push for the 8th amendment was begun on the basis that it would be a “push-over” for the Yes side, but “a very large number of people, one third of the electorate, emerged to reject the amendment”.
It should go without saying that every bit of that reasoning can be applied to the marriage referendum of last May. On the basis of what Adrian Hardiman argued in 1983 that, too, was a “moral victory” for the No side because that, too, was expected to be a “push-over”, yet “a very large number of people”, in this case almost four in ten voters, “emerged to reject the amendment”.
In fact, it may have been a bigger “moral victory” in that the forces arrayed in favour of the marriage amendment were far stronger than the forces arrayed in favour of the 8th amendment back in 1983.
Also, the No side in 1983 was stronger than the No side last year because the No side in 1983 enjoyed the support of the entirety of the media, much of academia and a great deal of the legal profession.
So if the No side won a “moral victory” in 1983, then the No side last year won an ever bigger “moral victory”. With less, it won more votes than the opponents of the 8th amendment.