Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/516432
ByShawnPogatchnik TheAssociatedPress DUBLIN Voters in once staunchly Catholic Ire- land were deciding Fri- day whether to legalize gay marriage in what the gov- ernment's equality minister called "a referendum like no other." Opinion polls suggest the government-backed amend- ment favoring gay marriage will be approved. But gay rights activists expressed caution based on previous votes when anti-govern- ment sentiment and low turnout produced surprise referendum defeats. Voting ends Friday night but re- sults won't be announced until Saturday. Electoral officers re- ported stronger-than-usual turnout at polling stations in Catholic schools, church halls and pubs across this nation of 3.2 million reg- istered voters. Some lines built up outside stations before the 7 a.m. opening. Ireland has no system for mail-in voting, so resi- dents from places like Lon- don, New York, Bangkok and Nairobi planned week- end trips home. Many doc- umented their journeys on Twitter, often under the hashtags #HomeToVote or, for some of those in neigh- boring Britain, #GetThe- BoatToVote. One posted a picture on a London-to- Wales train with travelers decked out in rainbow col- ors and balloons of the gay rights movement. Voters questioned by The Associated Press as they left several Dublin polling sta- tions demonstrated a clear generational gap. Those un- der 40 were solidly "yes," with older voters much more likely to have voted "no." "You can give the gays their rights without redefin- ing the whole institution of marriage. What they're ask- ing for is too much," said Bridget Ryan, 61, as she voted with her border col- lie in tow at a Catholic par- ish hall. The government's min- ister for equality, Aodhan O Riordain, cast his "yes" ballot and declared it the most important vote of his life. He took heart from signs of a strong turn- out, since involvement by young, first-time voters was considered key for the measure to pass. "This is a referendum like no other," O Riordain, 38, said in an AP interview. "There's a buzz and an an- ticipation of this like I've never seen before." A second proposed amendment to lower the minimum age of presiden- tial candidates from 35 to 21 was not expected to pass. On the gay marriage question, leaders of the country's predominant faith, Roman Catholicism, have led the opposition, arguing that legalization would undermine mar- riage as a pillar of society and trigger unintended le- gal consequences in Irish courts, where adoption and surrogacy rights loom as le- gal battlegrounds. Yet even within the church, a vocal grass-roots minority voted in favor, ar- guing that their bishops had no right to stop the state from managing civil wedding rules. "A lot of practicing Cath- olics are voting yes, and it's no different in the clergy," said the Rev. Tim Hazel- wood, a 56-year-old County Cork parish priest who told his flock from the pulpit at weekend Masses he was de- fying the bishops' line on the vote. "We didn't get much lead- ership from our leaders. I was hearing cold and clin- ical arguments against gay marriage, and what they said didn't represent my view of Gospel values at all," said Hazelwood, a psy- chotherapist who counsels gay parishioners on how to cope in an often-unfriendly world. A "yes" result would pro- vide fresh evidence of wan- ing church influence in a country that, in the 1980s, voted forcefully in referen- dums to outlaw abortion and reject divorce. SOCIAL ISSUE Yes or no? Ireland decides whether to legalize gay marriage By Bassem Mroue and Sameer N. Yacoub The Associated Press BAGHDAD Islamic State group militants searched through the Syrian town of Palmyra for government troops and fighters, using lists of names and inform- ers to track them down and shooting some in the head on the spot, activists said Friday, estimating at least 150 have been killed in the past two days. The purge was part of a clampdown by the extrem- ist group to solidify its grip on the town since overrun- ning it late Wednesday. The militants have also imposed a curfew from 5 p.m. until sunrise and banned people from leaving town until Sat- urday morning to ensure none of the government figures they seek manage to escape, activists and of- ficials said. The door-to-door hunt for opponents was similar to a purge the militants car- ried out in the Iraqi city of Ramadi after capturing it last week. "The search is going from house to house, shop to shop and people on the streets have to show iden- tity cards," said Osama al- Khatib, an activist from Palmyra who is currently in Turkey. Al-Khatib last contacted his friends and relatives in Palmyra on Fri- day morning before the gov- ernment cut off all land and cellular telephones as well as Internet service in the town. IS fighters have also de- tained dozens of suspects after seizing Palmyra, which is home to one of the Middle East's most famous archaeological sites, activ- ists and officials said. Homs-based activist Be- bars al-Talawy and an op- position Facebook page said that as many as 280 soldiers and pro-government mili- tiamen have been killed in Palmyra since it was cap- tured Wednesday. Al-Talawy said militants abducted soldiers and pro- government gunmen from homes, shops and other places where they had sought to hide. He added that many were shot dead in the streets. He said IS fighters used loudspeakers to warn res- idents against sheltering troops, leading many to come forward to give in- formation about forces that had melted into the civilian population. Al-Khatib said some 150 bodies lay in the streets of Palmyra, including 25 mem- bers of the pro-government militia known as the Pop- ular Committees who were Palmyra residents. Maamoun Abdulkarim, the head of the Antiqui- ties and Museum Depart- ment in the Syrian capital Damascus, said "there are arrests and liquidations in Palmyra." He added that IS fighters are "moving in res- idential areas, terrifying people and taking revenge." Abdulkarim said no gun- men were seen in the area of Palmyra's 2,000-year-old ruins, which once attracted thousands of tourists. The Britain-based Syr- ian Observatory for Human Rights said IS fighters have killed 17 men in Palmyra and that it has unconfirmed reports of the killing of doz- ens more. The Local Coordi- nation Committees, said IS fighters have killed dozens of people since Wednesday, including three siblings, two teenage girls and a teenage boy. Gov. Talal Barazi of the central province of Homs, which includes Palmyra, said that IS fighters have abducted men and "might have committed massa- cres." He added that ap- proximately 1,400 fami- lies left the town of 65,000 before IS started prevent- ing people from leaving on Thursday. An amateur video posted on a pro-IS Facebook page showed residents and mili- tants gathering around two bloodiedmeninmilitaryuni- forms on a Palmyra street. "Let all the residents see them," one of the men in the gathering tells an IS fighter. The video appeared gen- uine and corresponded to other AP reporting of the events. The Observatory and al- Talawy said IS's next tar- get appears to be the Tay- four air base near Palmyra, where many of the govern- ment troops had retreated. 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