Monday 27 January 2014

Homophobia - Its simple really

A straight catholic (note I flatly to ever refuse to use a capital letter for that religion) patriarchial society has taken it upon itself to dictate to me whom I can and cannot marry. Famous drag act, Panti (aka Rory Neill) was sent solicitors letters after comments he made recently on the Saturday night show but its very easy to see why Rory felt aggrieved at the comments that are directed at the gay community in Dublin. For too long the gay community has been seen as being freaks, second class citizens and slightly eccentric (perhaps the latter ;) ).

The Iona Institute as has been covered on this blog are a catholic research institute. Numerous commentators and media personalities are members of this institute while others are not. What do they have in common though? The common denominator is a lot of them believe that gay marriage should not be legalised for reasons that its different to other marriages through to it is not the correct environment for a child to be raised in. Im not going to bother posting the links to papers which show the first point on gay marriage being different as utter tosh (read them on google scholar). The research from the catholic right is from faith based institutions in a lot of cases, institutions who if they had even bothered to understand in researching that any faith makes their research impossible as biases must be checked at the door. Secondly, there are a lot of single parent families whom have raised children single handedly to become upstanding citizens of society which puts paid to the myth that a father or a mother are needed. A gay couple will adapt to the role of mother or father with both of these being a social construct anyways. Once a child will be brought into a loving home its what really matters. So that is the research bulldozed what about the belief?

Any belief that a homosexual person is less capable of being a member of society based on their sexuality is inherently a judgement and henceforth homophobic, its really that easy to see. The word homophobe is not being thrown around lightly here, its being used to address what is the last great fundamental civil rights movement in humanity. Apartheid era South Africa banned inter racial marriage under the Afrikaaner government as they viewed black people to be lesser people based on their skin colour, a similar judgement has been passed but note we replace the words South Africa with Ireland, inter racial/black with gay ,Afrikaaner with Irish conservative society and skin colour with sexuality and how does the sentence read? Not much of a difference if I was to be asked . The apartheid government fell and laws were repealed as they did a severe injustice to those whom they affected. Ireland is now at this point.

The belief that I am somehow lesser a person than others and therefore cannot get married is an outdated concept. catholicism is at a crossroads in Ireland and its going to cross and get ploughed out of it by a massive artic rigid truck and go splat hopefully…

Friday 17 January 2014

A New Beginning

Im falling victim to Haddington Road agreement, the agreement where all the unions bent right over and got their arses torn apart as they went bottom for the government to go top. Notwithstanding the very Quisling-esqu stance they took, the jobs they have been redeploying people to reads like jobs no one wants. Being stuck in a back office photocopying documents all day and not seeing the light of day? Erm no thanks Im not interested. I want somewhere where Im dealing with the public and not some plank screaming at me for post to be scanned in, Im more interested in dealing with the public. Redeployment is stressing me out big time, Im happy ish in my current position but just want to be left alone to do my job and get on with life, I do my job as Im not a career sorted type, Im more orientatied to a 5-9 lifestyle where I can do my own silly little side projects.

Dont get your Panti in a twist...

As the point I made on twitter this morning to Richard Waghorne and Panti is that in Apartheid South Africa, inter racial marriage was banned by the Afrikaaner government and this policy was racially driven, it treated black citizens as second class citizens . This policy was driven by the belief that Afrikaaners were superior to others and this was reinforced by the ex presidents of South Africa.
Back in November 2013 – David Quinn published an article in the Indo enttitled

Denying a child’s right to have a mother has become state policy

In it he says

The ‘right’ of two men or two women to have a child is a purely invented legal right, not a natural one. It is a simple fact of life that they will find it impossible to have a child unless they can find a member of the opposite sex who is willing to facilitate them

The right of citizens to be treated equally under the is not an invented legal right, it is the natural right of any society that people be treated just and fairly and not as second class citizens. Just as the black population of South Africa was banned from marrying who they like, the Iona Insitute does not want to see same sex marriage or same sex adoption for gay couples and the following is proof of that

http://www.thejournal.ie/david-norris-iona-institute-constitutional-convention-875170-Apr2013/

THERE HAVE BEEN calls for an investigation into allegations that the Iona Institute tried to mislead last weekend’s Constitutional Convention hearings on same-sex marriage.
Senator David Norris has sought an inquiry into whether the conservative think-tank deliberately cited an academic paper arguing in favour of a child being raised by its biological parents, presenting it as an argument in favour of excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage.

The Iona Institute’s submission to the convention summarised the paper as follows:

Research clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage… There is thus value in promoting strong, stable marriage between biological parents.
When accessed online now, however, the study carries a disclaimer on the front page from its authors – saying the research summarised surveys in 2002 which identified neither same-sex nor adoptive parents.
On a personal note I feel that the Iona Institute is an organisation with a prejudicial attitude and in the defence of fair comment as above I believe that this and other evidence is reasonable belief. You cannot sue someone for having an opinion. The Iona Institute really need to repair their time machine and go back to Victorian times where they may be lauded as heros and David Quinn can be hero worshipped ….