Marriage Equality wins "Honorary Corkonian" award at the Cork Rebel Awards 2010

17 Nov 2010

Marriage Equality are delighted to announce that we are the winners of this year's Honorary Corkonian Award at the Cork Rebel Awards! The awards ceremony took place on November 12, 2010 at the Imperial Hotel in Cork.

This award recognises an individual who is either a non-native or non-resident of Cork who, through working with the Cork LGBT Community through various medium, has made such a positive contribution to the community that they are awarded honorary rebel status, a title aspired to by every non-Corkonian.

Below is our acceptance speech, delivered by Cathal O'Broin on behalf of Marriage Equality.

"We are so sorry that we cannot be here in person to accept this award and to celebrate this important celebration in Cork's LGBT communities' diary. We have Evan Wolfson the CEO of Freedom to Marry in the U.S. visiting for a few days but otherwise we would love to be here with you.

We are absolutely delighted to receive the Honorary Corkonian Rebel Award, and we'd like to thank the Rebel Awards committee for this great honour.

Cork has always been a hive of activity in the campaign for Marriage Equality, from activist supporters taking part in our "Out to your TD" campaign, to journalists and bloggers writing about the issue, to volunteers holding fundraising events to fund the running costs and projects of the campaign such as the 'We are Family' poster and postcard campaign.

We've also been very lucky to have huge support from Cork Action for Equality, with whom we have close contacts. We've attended many of their events and supported them in their activities. We've also been fortunate enough to be invited to and attend events in LinC and UCC by the LGBT group in UCC on a number of occasions around the issue of marriage equality.

Both this year and last year we've enjoyed being a part of the Cork Pride festivities, where we've been able to spread the word and raise awareness of why we must keep pushing for equality for same sex couples, our families and our children.

We still have a lot of work to do before marriage equality becomes a reality. Civil Partnership may grant same sex couples some rights and obligation heretofore not enjoyed, but it does not treat us equally and until we have access to equal marriage rights, we, our families, and our children will continue to experience prejudice, stigma and fewer rights than other families. But with the continued support of Corkonians and people all over Ireland that believe that we deserve equality, we are confident that one day soon marriage equality will become a reality, and we'll be seeing Ireland's first same sex couples happily strolling down the aisles on their wedding days.

Thank you again.
The Marriage Equality team"

For more information about the Cork Rebel Awards, please visit - www.corkrebelawards.com