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…

Iona Institute and Gay Marriage

Iona Institute came out with this marvellous piece of work telling us why the marriage of a man and a woman is unique. The video purports to tell us that we should not redefine marriage but that every child is deserving of a mother and father . At the end of the day the whole video (two minutes in length) is patronising claptrap. Other people on social media have felt that the video was homophobic while others are looking on in disbelief that such an organisation comes out with such bullshit. The Iona Institute of course was founded by David Walsh , a former editor of the Irish catholic magazine.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iona_Institute

Despite a tweet asking David if I am not capable of being in a loving relationship and raising a child, no tweet was forthcoming in response. Am I somehow of a lesser individual based on the boll*x contained in the video? The video is offensive, its telling me I am not capable of raisng a child nor what I could provide could be a home.

Wikipedia defines homophobia as

Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT). It can be expressed as antipathy, contempt, prejudice, aversion, or hatred, and may be based on irrational fear.


Using that definition people can decide for themselves...

Evidence has shown that children raised in same sex marriage do just fine and this has been the case for years.http://www.startribune.com/opinion/c...1.html?refer=y

Thats just a report of a summary but more evidence backs this up as opposed to some evidence coming out of America from faith based organisations which have some bias.

Rest my case...

Update: The video was removed from You Tube for alleged breach of Terms of Service. While this was resolved Iona were puzzled but said it related to an e mail they missed to verify their account.

Gay Marriage

A lot of talk recently on gay marriage after North Carolina in the US rejected it out right opting to define marriage as being between a man and a woman . This move in itself is an affront to the dignity of the LGBT community in North Caroline but got me thinking about gay marriage in a general context and especially here in Ireland. Ireland has as you know , civil partnership which confers most entitlements to a smae sex partner but stops short at adoption and there is an issue around inheritance. To this end I propose the government introduce gay marriage or indeed something akin to gay marriage as marriage to me has religious connotations. There is support here in Ireland from all corners of society for such a move and such a move should be granted no questions asked. As I pointed out on another thread, some rights are non negotiable and are not subjective as society sees it that way. Why should others dictate to me how I live my private life? From most quarters the religious institutions in Ireland and the right in Ireland have consistently undermined or made efforts to bring anything in by stifling it.

Lets ban marriage...

The right make so much of a deal of marriage these days , they claim its the basis of the nuclear family or 2.4 children . Man meets woman, they get engaged and they marry and for what? Let us not beat around the bush here, marriage only serves a financial purpose, couples who are married here in Ireland are better off financially than those that are not (http://www.youandyourmoney.ie/content.asp?contentid=882) . Tax credits can be transferred between spouses whom are married. The other issue is, marriage in a way is discriminatory, it creates a world where gay people cannot get married but must have to make do with a civil partnership. The rights of a CP are not the same as that of marriage (http://www.marriagequality.ie/learn/...rtnershipbill/) particularly in relation to inheritance and rights. Instead of us all fighting for equal rights why not just scrap marriage all together for everyone? Families who want a religious ceremony can have one by all means in their local church but the marriage must be registered at a registry office . Outdated practices such as marriage should be consigned to the bin of the past, they went out with the dinosaurs, cowboys and Indians and FF as relics of Ireland's past. Start the marriage ban as a basis to building a secular society where we all then become on an equal footing.

Gay Rights Russia

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...tTN_story.html





Gay rights have suffered a set back in Russia . A new bill says that it is now against the law to promote gay culture to minors in what could be seen as a set back for gay rights. Im not a fan of gay pride myself but they should be allowed march where they like, whats the harm?