Irish company turns anti-gay pamphlets into confetti for LGBT weddings

Of all the many uses for confetti — showering award show winners, stuffing envelopes, jazzing up nail polish — subverting homophobic propaganda may be the most creative and powerful one we've seen to date.

In the run-up to Ireland's May 22 marriage equality referendum (citizens will vote on whether or not to legalize same-sex marriage within the country), opponents have been distributing anti-LGBT leaflets in an attempt to win support from voters.

Containing unfounded statements suggesting that gay people "contract cancers earlier in life" and that children adopted by same-sex couples are "50 times more likely to die of injuries inflicted on them," many of the pamphlets have upset the people they've been given to in Dublin.

Some on Twitter are destroying the anti-gay leaflets they receive, but Irish paper company Daintree had a better idea — create confetti out of them to be used at gay weddings.

"If you receive any dishonest flyers or leaflets in the run-up to the referendum we want to recycle them into confetti," reads a message posted by the company online. "Just drop into our little paper shop at 61 Camden Street, Dublin, and hand the lies over to one of our lovely shop staff and we'll create more beautiful confetti to help people celebrate marriage equality."

Daintree has set up a dedicated website to host materials for its confetti campaign, which it calls A Shred of Decency.

There, the company is actually selling bags of confetti "made from 100% recycled lies" for €5, with 100 per cent of its profits going to Ireland's pro-LGBT Yes Equality organization.

While the company is shipping its confetti internationally, leaflets are currently only being accepted for shredding at its Dublin headquarters.

Those who would like to participate remotely can still do so, however, via Twitter.

"If you see any negative and dishonest tweets about the marriage referendum on Twitter, we can shred these Tweets for you too!" reads the campaign website. "Just reply to the dishonest tweet and add #shredthistweet. We will then print the tweet off and add it to the pile."

"We'll also send a tweet to the source of the dishonesty and thank them for their very generous help in supporting YES Equality," the company notes. "We will try (and probably fail) to suppress a tiny smile whilst doing so."

While some on Twitter are indeed calling out hateful messages on the hashtag, most are simply using it to praise the campaign and share images of the confetti they've received from Daintree.

Daintree Paper manager Nichola Doyle told the Independent newspaper that 500 batches of confetti have already been created from leaflets collected by her staff. 

They're going fast, though, according to the campaign's Instagram account — which makes sense considering that a majority of Irish voters plan to support gay marriage on referendum day, according to polls.

Watch the campaign's full video here: