Do you think the Iona Institute are homophobic?

Lou.m

No

IT IS ON FOX NEWS NOW !!!


That was worthy of giant letters. FOX!

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/02/11/drag-queen-speech-on-anti-gay-attitudes-in-ireland-goes-viral-spurs-national/

iwantmydinner

I'm so thrilled to know the poison has well and truly been bred into the next generation. That's awesome news altogether.

Annasopra

No

LookingFor wrote: »

I had to double-check because I could not believe this was a real letter.


edit - actually, the letter is there, but that's an edited version Mango! 'Infertile' and 'infertility' are not in the original text. I appreciate the point of whoever edited the letter, but still...presenting it as unedited makes the guy out to be a total fool in terms of how he presents his arguments.

He is of course being careful to ignore the 'straight married couples don't/can't have children too' issue, but he's not stupid enough to call their marriages out as invalid.

The letter does demonstrate the conflation of issues that Breda O'Brien was also engaging in on the IT podcast. The marriage referendum has nothing to do with surrogacy, but they seem very keen to tie them all together.

The apparent issues they have with adoption are also pretty nasty, IMO.

Ooops - someone emailed it to me and I just copied the email. I did check the IT and see the name but didn't think to check what was in it.

LookingFor

No

Something I've never really gotten in these arguments, by Brendan in that letter and Iona elsewhere, is some of the uncomfortable suggestions that fall out from what they're saying.

Are they saying that a child would be better off not born if it means being raised by gay parents? For example they seem to be against a lesbian using a sperm donation, or a gay man using surrogacy, in order to have a child.

But that child would not exist otherwise! Presumably, anyway. I doubt lesbian xyz is going to have that child if doing so tied her anonymous donor abc.

So between denying a child existence or denying a child 'its genetic inheritance'... they would prefer the former to side step the latter?

Or do they acknowledge the validity of these kids' existence, but don't want anyone but their biological parents to be able to marry? Or anyone but someone of the opposite sex be married to their gay parent?

But given that this is not going to happen - that basically adds up to denying that child better circumstances. Legal ties and protection between child and two parents.

Their opposition boils down to one of these choices. Assuming it's not the first, is it really the second? They who keep pattering on about what's best for children?

mikom

No

Honestly.......... What mother called Brenda names her son Brendan.
Bunch of weirdos.

Links234

No

mikom wrote: »

Honestly.......... What mother called Brenda names her son Brendan.
Bunch of weirdos.

Her name is Breda, not Brenda

alaimacerc

Lou.m wrote: »

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/02/11/drag-queen-speech-on-anti-gay-attitudes-in-ireland-goes-viral-spurs-national/

I think this is the measure of the delusion of the "silent majority" theorists that think the referendum is going to crash and burn due to a massive socially conservative backlash (might crash and burn anyway due to a massively low turnout, mind you). Even Fox is reporting this in "silly quaintly regressively Irish" terms. Much as they might agree with the end, the grubby details (homosexuality still illegal 20 years ago, defamation laws used to try to shut down comment) don't really sound too heartily approved of at that remove, do they?

alaimacerc

Links234 wrote: »

Her name is Breda, not Brenda

Brenda Power/Breda O'Brien conflation? (It's happened to me before, I must admit, and "spat with Rory O'Neill" would be just the topic to do it on.)

mikom

No

Links234 wrote: »

Her name is Breda, not Brenda

Breeder?

Also, how is she O'Brien and her son is Conroy?

alaimacerc

LookingFor wrote: »

Something I've never really gotten in these arguments, by Brendan in that letter and Iona elsewhere, is some of the uncomfortable suggestions that fall out from what they're saying.

Are they saying that a child would be better off not born if it means being raised by gay parents? For example they seem to be against a lesbian using a sperm donation, or a gay man using surrogacy, in order to have a child.

I'm not sure if they're formally opposed on all accounts, but Iona are pretty sniffy about IVF (for example) "even" for het, married "normal" people. I think their bottom line is "do it the Catholic way, or don't trouble yourself".

But that child would not exist otherwise!

Whatever one thinks of the RCC's take on "reproductive ethics", one couldn't it accuse of it being driven by any sort of "greatest good" or "parents' rights" approach. Or even by pre-conception right-to-life, as such.

hotmail.com

No

Breda doesn't disagree with the legal discrimination of gay teachers.

alaimacerc

Corkfeen wrote: »

The standard of content is abysmal and [Alive "newspaper" is] the equivalent of the Daily Mail in Catholic form.

This is possibly the first time I've ever been moved to think that a comparison with another... organ is perhaps somewhat unfair to the Faily Maul.

No actual calibre of journalism. They actually have segments dedicated to celebrating bigotry.

Though one can't deny some of the essential similarities.

amdublin

No

Complaints@rte.ie

It's not too late to expresss your opinions to them....






I am not normally as "shouty" or emotional, normally stick to more factual, but godd@mnit I can't help being emotional about this matter.

Read from bottom up!



On Wednesday, 12 February 2014, 18:52,amdublin wrote:
Dear Mx xxxxxxxx,
Thank you for your reply but unfortunately it does not ease my concern about how RTE have dealt with this issue.

I note your comments about being fair, impartial and accurate and hence the debate on this issue as being evidence of this.

However the fact you have already paid out and apologized indicates you are neither fair nor impartial. And in my opinion you have been inaccurate : call a spade a spade - all the people named ARE homophobes.

Frankly I would have rather you went to court on this one. I wouldn't have cared if you (we!!!) had ended up paying €850k or €850m rather than just (very quickly!!!) settling for €85k.

There is a time for standing up and fighting and this is the time now.

Shame on you RTE! Shame on you for having a host who asked for names to be named and then you BLAME the guest.
Rory O'Neill truly deserves an apology from you.
Regards
Amdub

Ps. The amount of time, energy and money you've now spent on this issue...shame on your soi-distant legal team!!! The first sniff of a solicitors letter you should have been advised to write back "feck off". I am being facetious here but come on a bit of come on a little bit of common sense here





From: Complaints <complaints@rte.ie>;
To: amdublin;
Subject: RE: compensation paid to Iona Institute
Sent: Tue, Feb 4, 2014 3:45:55 PM

Dear amdublin,

Thank you for your mail in relation to The Saturday Night Show and related matters.

RTÉ remains committed to providing coverage and debate that is fair, impartial and accurate, in keeping with the RTÉ Journalism Guidelines 2012 which may be accessed at http://www.rte.ie/documents/about/rte-journalism-guidelines-oct-2012-final.pdf. The debate relating to this topic on The Saturday Night Show of 1 February last, which featured a diverse range of views, is evidence of that.

We are not in a position to comment on the monetary terms of any settlement reached. However we can assure you that the decision to mitigate was the result of detailed discussion of the legal, financial, editorial, and broadcasting compliance issues.

The Saturday Night Show remains the subject of a legal complaint and we regret that for that reason we are unable to comment any further on the programme, or on issues relating to it.

We take feedback on our programmes and actions very seriously and your views on this matter will be forwarded for the information of senior editorial and management executives, as part of the considerable correspondence we have received on this topic.

Yours sincerely,

xxxx xxxxx
RTÉ Broadcast Compliance

---

Original Message

---

From: amdublin
Sent: 01 February 2014 12:51
To: Complaints
Subject: compensation paid to Iona Institute


To whom it may concern

I am writing to express my unhappiness with the apology made to and compensation paid to the Iona Institute.

Firstly I do not believe that anything said by the SNS guest was untrue.
Secondly if however RTE did believe an untrue statement had been made then all it had to do was issue a statement saying the opinions of the guest is not the opinion of RTE. To apologise and pay money is making me very angry.

Finally let's call a spade a spade, anyone with a bit of common sense can see that the Iona Institute has a serious agenda to deny a minority group equality with the majority. They sneakily hide this under their bullish!t of "protecting the sanctity of marriage" and their "we're just thinking of the children" rubbish. But at the end of the day they are a group of people with some sick twisted ideals of right and wrong.

They of course have the right to believe what they want and the right to free speech but is this really who RTE want to be aligned with?

I shall be making a complaint to the BAI also.

Regards
Amdublin

alaimacerc

lazygal wrote: »

What makes a church any different from any other club with rules?

Other clubs' "rulebooks" have to comply with the Equal Status Act, for one thing.

Bannasidhe

No

alaimacerc wrote: »

Other clubs' "rulebooks" have to comply with the Equal Status Act, for one thing.

but...but...'ethos'.

Corkfeen

No

alaimacerc wrote: »

This is possibly the first time I've ever been moved to think that a comparison with another... organ is perhaps somewhat unfair to the Faily Maul.



Though one can't deny some of the essential similarities.

Okay,the Daily Mail is less right wing and teeny bit more competent. :pac: Alive is the ultimate free toilet paper available.......

mickstupp

No

Corkfeen wrote: »

Okay,the Daily Mail is less right wing and teeny bit more competent. :pac: Alive is the ultimate free toilet paper available.......

Even free it's too abrasive to wipe my behind with.

Really annoys me how I can never catch them putting it in the letterbox. Someday I'll find them. Do you think they'd honour a request to never again put that in my letterbox?

PopePalpatine

No

People who deliver Alive! should be followed around by Malcolm Tucker for a year.

alaimacerc

Lyaiera wrote: »

There's a few Christian church's that will marry gay people. Off hand I know the Universal Unitarians in America will.

The UUs aren't formally a Christian denomination. I was going to say "non-Christian", but "post-Christian" or "Christian-compatible" might be more apt.

I'm not entirely sure about the Irish Unitarians, but I think they're broadly similar. There are some "Unitarians" that are still expressly Christian, though mostly "trading as" other names. (And in any case, as they're non-Trinitarian (obviously), they're not recognised for the purposes of common baptism.)

alaimacerc

AerynSun wrote: »

Is the Church only for people who do not EVER sin?

Not at all! The church is for people that're constantly sinning, provided merely that they're prepared to stipulate to the sinfulness of what they're doing.

Theologically, much better to be a serial murder that's at least briefly remorseful in a clerically acceptable manner, than to be "impenitently" out of sorts with some aspect of the church's obsessively obscurantist take on sexual morality.

AerynSun

No

alaimacerc wrote: »

Not at all!

Yeah yeah... the way I see it, there are some things (like gay bum sex) that are not the least bit sinful, IMO. But if you're talking to a conservative/blinkered/homophobic Catholic (as opposed to one of the more reasonable ones), you have to 'start where they're at' - hence the conversation going anywhere near 'sin' and trying to get an acknowledgement at least that even if the thing *was* sin (which we know it's not!), then the treatment that that particular 'sin' gets, is out of sync with the treatment meted out to other kinds of sin (notice this last reference to sin is without the quote unquote: because bum sex is fine, but bitching to all and sundry in the parish about the people having bum sex, is not fine).

Anyway, I promised I would keep my commentary about the RCC to a limit, so I will shush now.

lazygal

No

mikom wrote: »

Breeder?

Also, how is she O'Brien and her son is Conroy?

Maybe she didn't change her name when she married and her son has her husband's surname. Not that uncommon.

Zubeneschamali

No

lazygal wrote: »

Maybe she didn't change her name when she married.

A Heathen practice! Wives, be subject to your husbands!

lazygal

No

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

A Heathen practice! Wives, be subject to your husbands!

*checks name* Nope, I never changed it either. Guess I'm a jeebus hating heathen.

Bannasidhe

No

lazygal wrote: »

*checks name* Nope, I never changed it either. Guess I'm a jeebus hating heathen.

It is unusual for conservative types but she may have retained maiden name as it is her 'journo' name.

lazygal

No

Bannasidhe wrote: »

It is unusual for conservative types but she may have retained maiden name as it is her 'journo' name.

She also uses that name for teaching impressionable young minds.

mikom

No

lazygal wrote: »

Maybe she didn't change her name when she married and her son has her husband's surname. Not that uncommon.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

It is unusual for conservative types but she may have retained maiden name as it is her 'journo' name.

Next you'll be telling me she does it doggy style............ like an animal.

marmurr1916

No

mikom wrote: »

Breeder?

Also, how is she O'Brien and her son is Conroy?

Brendan Conroy is her husband.

Ben Conroy is one of her kids, the son who was in the audience of the Saturday Night Show debate about homophobia (the one with Susan Philips).

I presume she goes by her pre-married name for professional reasons.

Not sure if the Bible condones this.

AngryHippie

No

I'm just listening to Breda O's Soundcloud interview on the IT site now,

I'm having a starship troopers moment here, where Neil Patrick Harris proclaims that the Big Slug bug is "Afraid".

So Iona are scared about where this debate is going.

She then sidetracks the debate into an emotional plea about genealogy.

I really fear for her emotional state, and her connection to the reality of the world she lives in. I believe this discussion is shattering her concept of society.

Does this mean that society is "wrong" or that she is the one that does not fit rather than the LGBT community ?

She comes across as delusional, and thank you very much Hugh Linehan for calling her on it every time she threw up the genealogical straw man, and dragging her back into the discussion of employment, education, schools and marriage.

She decided to "deal" with these topics one by one, and then fell on her face.

Nice of her to sidestep JW's diatribe...

She then states that it is "unhealthy" for the catholic church to have its views enshrined in legislation.....Thereby sitting on her own hand grenade. Debate over. The only grounds for denying LGBT full rights to SSM are discriminatory religious hodge-podge, so if it's agreed that it is unhealthy to bring that view into legislation, game over, permission granted.

Apology issued by RTE and Dail Eireann, and a massive win for civil rights please.......


Personal message to Breda, if she is reading:
The "path" you have chosen in life, is to interfere in others lives.
You aren't in any danger, not from me at very least, and while your views are valid as personal views, once you take a public forum and disseminate views that interfere in other's lives, you expose yourself to exactly what has happened. You should take your own advice, and keep in mind that there are people behind the discussions.
Take care, and don't lose any sleep over this, the outcome will not affect YOUR life in any way.

God Bless.

LookingFor

No

Not sure if posted, but this video of a David Quinn lecture in 2011 is doing the rounds on Twitter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mICw74OCfIs

I've only watched the first ten minutes, but it gives an interesting insight into his mindset, and I guess the mindset of Iona. He talks about 'lifestyles' and their validity, or defending the idea that one should be able to treat unequally different lifestyles.

He seems to strongly support the ability of religious organisations to discriminate, seemingly without care for how much of society said religious organisations might control.

Best of all, in light of current circumstances, he bemoans a scenario where - a teacher, say - cannot cause offense in the classroom. He talks about how in a 'culture of moral relativism', the first commandment is 'thou shalt not cause offense'. Yet it seems to me that Mr. Quinn does not agree with others expressing views that cause offense to him...and will actively shut those viewpoints down with solicitors' letters.

I'm basically getting the impression that his viewpoint is 'our way is the only right way, if we impose it through influence and discriminatory practice in the spheres that we control - be they within a Church or within a school - then tough luck for you'. A Catholic bulldog, basically, with little respect for diversity. At least he seems to bemoan being asked to 'celebrate' diversity.

I'm told he also has some wonderfully nice things to say about transgender people later in the video...