Do you think the Iona Institute are homophobic?

diddlybit wrote: »

complaints@rte.ie if anyone else is shocked at how their €160 is being spent.

Already sent an email.

I have never felt so much distrust in RTE. A terrible direction to be taking.

LookingFor wrote: »

Hey RTE, can I get some money the next time Iona defames me on air by saying I would be bad parent/am stealing marriage/etc?

That's the thing. It's a very one-sided stance RTE are taking, and it is going to give them so much hassle every time someone cries 'offended' on every discussion show they have on any controversial subject.

There's actually a huge impracticality with Irish (and British) defamation laws. They still treat electronic media as if they were print and see it all as 'publication'.

The concepts behind the laws originate in an era when the only form of 'broadcasting' was the dead-tree approach i.e. print media.

Anything in print, especially in the olden days when it had to be manually typeset, could reasonably be assumed to be a 'considered opinion' as it couldn't be produced hastily really and had to go through a lot of design and thought to get to the stage it's printed.

Electronic media (radio, TV, internet) is often live and you can't predict what people might say.

Also, with regard to online media, I think they forget sometimes that it's not really 'broadcasting' it's often more akin to uttering something in a pub.

I'd much rather see a situation like the USA where you've a guaranteed right to freedom of speech. We really don't have anything even approaching that in reality when the defamation laws come into play they can be used to stifle debate and limit investigative journalism.

I know journalists can go crazy in tabloid mode and do all sorts of damage too. But there's a sensible balance to be struck I think between things like making fair and heartfelt comment about something that you genuinely believe to be true on a TV or Radio show or even accidentally blurting something out in the heat of a debate vs someone printing something in a paper in a way that's calculated to cause problems.

I would hate to see this turning into a battle of lawyers and I would appeal to anyone involved in the debate not to do that. We need a proper, open debate and I think grown ups are just going to have to accept the odd bump and bruise in that debate too and be big enough to brush it off and move on.

That's the thing though. I don't think any of us can be 'offended'. This is going to be a heated debate and I think people are just going to have to roll with the punches on both sides.

That's the trouble with democracy - people don't always agree with you.

mickstupp wrote: »

I'm uncomfortable bringing religion too far into this. There are plenty of people who identify as Catholic who are not homophobic. Painting all Catholics (or religious people generally) with the same brush isn't particularly fair. Even my 85 year old rural Spanish granny (and you can't get much more devoutly Catholic) felt gay people should be allowed marry. And on that point, assuming opinions based on age shouldn't be a factor either.

But I think aiming at the religious angle, although partially valid in some cases, might be obscuring the fact that some opposition to gay marriage is just down to ignorance and hate which has nothing to do with the person's particular religious beliefs. I sometimes feel like attacking an opinion for its religious basis is just as ignorant as the opposition's lack of rational argument. It's the easy way out these days. "Oh they're Catholic, well then don't need to pay attention to them eh?" No. It doesn't hold up.

I don't know. I guess I think all talk of religion should be excised from the debate and any and all leaflets and information the closer we get to a referendum. It shouldn't be relevant in a modern society that tries to separate church and state. This is supposed to be constitutional, not religious.

Though maybe I'm being an idiot.

You're not being an idiot at all, a lot of people who are religious disagree greatly with church doctrine, and there are also plenty of religious people who are LGBT, so it's not really a religion vs. gay people issue and they shouldn't really be at odds.

mickstupp wrote: »

I'm uncomfortable bringing religion too far into this. There are plenty of people who identify as Catholic who are not homophobic. Painting all Catholics (or religious people generally) with the same brush isn't particularly fair. Even my 85 year old rural Spanish granny (and you can't get much more devoutly Catholic) felt gay people should be allowed marry. And on that point, assuming opinions based on age shouldn't be a factor either.

But I think aiming at the religious angle, although partially valid in some cases, might be obscuring the fact that some opposition to gay marriage is just down to ignorance and hate which has nothing to do with the person's particular religious beliefs. I sometimes feel like attacking an opinion for its religious basis is just as ignorant as the opposition's lack of rational argument. It's the easy way out these days. "Oh they're Catholic, well then don't need to pay attention to them eh?" No. It doesn't hold up.

I don't know. I guess I think all talk of religion should be excised from the debate and any and all leaflets and information the closer we get to a referendum. It shouldn't be relevant in a modern society that tries to separate church and state. This is supposed to be constitutional, not religious.

Though maybe I'm being an idiot.

It is those opposed to same axe marriage that bring religion into te equation. Ideally we, as a society in the 21st century, would take each issue on its merits and with maturity decide what is correct for our society at a given time. However we are unable to do so as almost every issue get entangled in theocratic drivel.

There are a lot of people who identify as Catholics who are not opposed to gay marriage, so nobody can generalise. However it must be recognised that Christian teachings and those who are more fundamental about their beliefs use religion as the driving force behind their opposition.

What they don't understand is that they do not hold a monopoly on marriage. Monogamy existed and forms of what we could consider as being marriage in its earliest forms existed before Christianity. However in a power grab to assert their own beliefs as every bodies they are concerned about portraying their definition as untouchable and as if only they can decide its meaning.

Societies progress when they reevaluate important issues like this. Divorce and contraception not long ago were going to be the end of days in this country. We'll accept and move on from this issue and nothing except more people getting married will change.

As the joke goes, if gay people want to get married and be as miserable as the rest of us, then let them.

If you're upset at religion being brought into this, perhaps you could tell the Iona Institute to f*ck off every time they bring it up as an excuse to rag on gay people? If you're Catholic, they clearly think you're on their side. Show them that you're not.

You could drive an entire fleet of double-decker busses and a supertanker through that argument though!

I mean, what about couples who don't have kids either due to making that decision or because they just can't have kids. There are a lot of people out there who can't have kids or father kids due to medical conditions.

What about adopted kids?

What about single parents?

....

Cydoniac wrote: »

Honestly, I consider Iona and religion to be separate entities. Iona use fundamentalist-style tactics and I don't think they accurately represent Catholicism, and I also don't believe they're doing it for the good of god.

Well they mightn't represent catholics, but they do preach Church doctrine, alas.