This past week, Ireland made headlines by passing Marriage Equality in a nation-wide vote. The win, was by a huge margin, many are calling a landslide. Ive read that it was as high as two to one. This is huge, but it really isn’t that surprising. Even polls here in the US put support for marriage equality above 55% and closer to 60% depending on the poll.

I’ve read a number of articles and blog posts about this victory.  This article by Fintan O’Toole in the Irish Times is one of my favorites of all that I’ve read. Some are saying the effects of this will impact the US, but there are points I haven’t seen anyone mention yet, so I wanted to list my five reasons the Irish victory matters for Americans. These are not in any specific order.

1) When voters turn out, progress wins. The Irish turn out was extremely high. Here in the US, many progressives and moderates fret that their vote doesn’t matter because conservatives seem to win over and over. The focus is all wrong. In the past two elections total turn out was less than 50% but the number of conservative voters was high. If and when progressives turn out, they will see victory. Everyone has to vote however for this to happen. Otherwise we will continue to get conservatives elected when the vast majority of Americans don’t go to the polls.

2) Voting for the Family means voting for Marriage Equality. In Irish culture, the family unit is extremely important, and this translated to many older persons voting “Yes” for marriage equality because they were showing love and support for their children, their siblings and their relatives. Here in the US, the Far Right has use “Family” as code for anti-LGBT. There has to be a way for pro-marriage equality advocates to reframe the dialogue given what happened in the Irish vote. Coming out to our families is an important part of the equation, but not the whole answer. Americans have a more me-centric culture, rather than the family-centric culture of Ireland.

3) Passing Marriage Equality has never been about “Activist Judges.” The anti-LGBT folks like to say, “Let the people decide,” and we may hear less of that now. Ireland shows us what can happen when you let the people decide. The judicial issue in the US is really about the constitutionality of laws rather than marriage equality itself, ad that is an important distinction too often missed.

4) Being anti-LGBT is not the de facto religious stance. The Irish people are a very religious people, i.e. Catholic people, and they still voted for marriage equality. Religion isn’t against same-sex marriage. Homophobes and anti-LGBT zealots are. Their motives are not religious even if they try and justify their hate mongering with religion.

5) Sexual orientation itself, and marriage equality and other rights for LGBTQ persons is not an American thing. There are gays and lesbians all across the globe and many want to and all deserve the dignity and respect afforded to heterosexuals. Some have tried to make LGBT out as an American thing, when it isn’t at all. It’s a human reality everywhere.