Do you think the Iona Institute are homophobic?

Bannasidhe

No

jank wrote: »

Yes, never in the history of the world has a liberal every said anything wrong. Everything they said was utterly true and fact, like the periodic table…. that is basically your argument.

Your 'argument' appears to be a Gay atheist doesn't think Gay people should get married therefore Iona are not homophobic as they also don't want Gay people to get married.

J_E

No

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Your 'argument' appears to be a Gay atheist doesn't think Gay people should get married therefore Iona are not homophobic as they also don't want Gay people to get married.

The function of his argument was he found a valid discussion point therefore everyone who disagrees is a stinking liberal fascist. It's derailing discussion and he has expressed that he doesn't actually care about the topic, just a John McGuirk type who will argue the toss with anything for the sake of winning a point for his 'side' (hate that left vs right thing btw, it's childish)

Maximus Alexander

No

To be honest I don't even know what liberalism is. I just think the things that some people say are stupid and the things that some other people say make sense.

Bannasidhe

No

Cydoniac wrote: »

The function of his argument was he found a valid discussion point therefore everyone who disagrees is a stinking liberal fascist. It's derailing discussion and he has expressed that he doesn't actually care about the topic, just a John McGuirk type who will argue the toss with anything for the sake of winning a point for his 'side' (hate that left vs right thing btw, it's childish)

Oh, Jank and I have encountered each other many many times before. Usually around this point he questions how I have the time to be on boards or some other such dig.

floggg

No

jank wrote: »

Yes, never in the history of the world has a liberal every said anything wrong. Everything they said was utterly true and fact, like the periodic table…. that is basically your argument.

I edited the post to clarify my intent before i saw this BTW.

But no, I'm not claiming to infallible.

I obviously did however believe what I wrote to be correct when i wrote it. If you believe I am wrong on substantive point, I am asking you tell me why so I can consider your counter point and decide whether there is merit to it and if so whether I should and re-appraise my views.

It's how civil discourse and debate works.

EuskalHerria

No

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Oh, Usually around this point he questions how I have the time to be on boards or some other such dig.

A break in between masturbating like the rest of us I'd assume? Can't be on boards all day.

floggg

No

Skylinehead wrote: »

True, it proves that you don't have to be homophobic to oppose same-sex marriage. But it's a very niche argument, and it's not one that's going to be used by the conservative/Iona type. Their arguments are completely baseless, so it's a valid assumption that they are homophobic.

As I've asked before - does he disagree with our right to marriage equality or our desire for it.

If it's the former, then it's not a counter-argument to marriage equality as such, but more of a criticism of the institution.

Zillah

No

floggg wrote: »

Honestly, I don't think that's it. You never hear them talking about unmarried couples and sex so much.

There's just something about the idea of two dudes getting hot and steamy together that just occupies some peoples minds.

They looooove going on about how the only real family is married heterosexuals - single parents and unmarried couples get a pretty hard time from them too.

J_E

No

floggg wrote: »

As I've asked before - does he disagree with our right to marriage equality or our desire for it.

If it's the former, then it's not a counter-argument to marriage equality as such, but more of a criticism of the institution.

"There was a piece in the paper the other day about gay divorce." A moue of disgust. "What are gay people doing inflicting these horrors upon themselves? Get a civil partnership, and the moment things go wrong, the person who will determine your financial future is some incompetent, uncomprehending heterosexual! For God's sake. How mad can you be? Why would you want to drape yourself in the trappings of marriage? To voluntarily put your head in that noose!"

Seems to be the latter more than the former. That's a quote he made before. He seems to be against it as he believes it's a heteronormative process we can probably save the effort on by just being civil partnered. I think if civil partners were afforded the same rights as married people, a lot of fuss would die down to be honest. He's not actually against it so much as he can't fathom why people want it.

Skylinehead

No

jank wrote: »

Correction, their argument is different so its deemed baseless, and therefore is perceived as homophobic. Its all subjective wether you like it or not.

Ok, give me one good argument that they have to oppose homosexual marriage and why it is a good argument. Hint: they've already been posted, and they've already been debunked.

Akrasia

No

jank wrote: »

Italy is very catholic yet you have ex-porn stars who have are members of parliament. To be blunt, this arm chair analysis of 'backward' Ireland does my head. Its just an elevated version of a Joe Duffy phone in.

Luckily for us, not everyone in Ireland is a conservative catholic these days

Isn't secularism great. The demise of traditional catholic values is allowing us to participate in the 21st century

Not everyone is a conservative catholic in Italy either

floggg

No

Zillah wrote: »

They looooove going on about how the only real family is married heterosexuals - single parents and unmarried couples get a pretty hard time from them too.

I don't disagree. You don't hear them talk about unmarried couples sex lives as much.

Yet every time there's a debate on gay issues, somebody also brings it back to sex.

Sometimes its probably a deliberate attempt to diminish gay people and relationships, and to dis-associate them from concepts like love, commitment etc.

Other times though it's just a creepy pre-occupation which is more illustrative of the mind of the speak rather than gay people.

Maximus Alexander

No

floggg wrote: »

Other times though it's just a creepy pre-occupation which is more illustrative of the mind of the speak rather than gay people.

It reminds me of Stephen Fry's documentary 'Out There' where he travels the world to find out what it's like to be gay in different parts of the globe.

So many of the homophobes he meets keep talking about how wrong they think sodomy is, his baffled response is to ask why they are so obsessed with sodomy when a large proportion of gay people don't even engage in it, himself included.

A Scoundrel

No

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

It reminds me of Stephen Fry's documentary 'Out There' where he travels the world to find out what it's like to be gay in different parts of the globe.

So many of the homophobes he meets keep talking about how wrong they think sodomy is, his baffled response is to ask why they are so obsessed with sodomy when a large proportion of gay people don't even engage in it, himself included.

Sodomy can be any non-productive sex act. It means "un-natural sexual relations", not just the old bumsex.

Why this is deemed morally wrong is still baffling, of course.

Maximus Alexander

No

A Scoundrel wrote: »

Sodomy can be any non-productive sex act. It means "un-natural sexual relations", not just the old bumsex.

Why this is deemed morally wrong is still baffling, of course.

I don't think it's worth getting into semantics, but sodomy is usually used, especially in the context of denigrating homosexuals, to refer to anal sex. Dictionary definitions would reflect this.

Nodin

No

jank wrote: »

Italy is very catholic yet you have ex-porn stars who have are members of parliament. To be blunt, this arm chair analysis of 'backward' Ireland does my head. Its just an elevated version of a Joe Duffy phone in.

So jump to Italy, then say that disproves certain remarks about Ireland, where condoms only became freely available in 1990. With ye.

padd b1975

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

It reminds me of Stephen Fry's documentary 'Out There' where he travels the world to find out what it's like to be gay in different parts of the globe.

So many of the homophobes he meets keep talking about how wrong they think sodomy is, his baffled response is to ask why they are so obsessed with sodomy when a large proportion of gay people don't even engage in it, himself included.

A documentary presented by Stephen Fry that ends up being about Stephen Fry....


Predictable.:mad:

Ash.J.Williams

No

was invited to a gig and to a lgbt rally ....i f**in hate the band so that was an instant decline...then went to decline the rally and thought....."ooooh better not decline that one ..i'll just ignore in case i look homophobe" lol

Ash.J.Williams

No

http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2014/01/29/john-waters-to-build-gay-proof-safe-room-at-home-with-rte-damages-claim/

J_E

No

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

"ooooh better not decline that one ..i'll just ignore in case i look homophobe" lol

Hate using this emote but...

:rolleyes:

SpaceTime

Ireland was pretty unbelievable before the 1990s in terms of how conservative the laws around all sorts of things, particularly contraception were.

We were quite literally up there with the most conservative places on the planet and it was really causing us serious issues internationally.

I know personally of people who wouldn't move here / live here because of it, so didn't invest here. This is talking to friends of my parents, older colleagues etc who would have been involved in business in the 1970s/80s.

For our generation (I certainly wasn't around in the 1970s and was a very young kid in the 80s), we don't have any idea notion of just how screwy Ireland was at that time. It had managed to take 1920s British conservatism and add a load of extra stuff to it.

I know for many of us when we think back to the 1980s it was all nostalgia and the Den.. zig & zag and Bosco and all those positive things. But it was set against a backdrop of some of the most horrendously conservative legislation on contraception, reproduction, divorce etc that have probably been seen in any Western Democracy ever.

Can you imagine from a 2014 Irish perspective if you were considering investing in several European countries and had to move to one of them and one of them would actually insist that you couldn't use contraception with your own partner and that you'd have to 'accept whatever children God sent you'....
Meanwhile, you couldn't get divorced, even if your marriage had fallen apart or even worse, if your marriage had turned violent and you'd an abusive spouse.
And you couldn't be gay/bi either and (even if not very heavily enforced) you risked prosecution for it..
Meanwhile, the place was over-run with nuns and priests doing things that you'd normally expect to be state / social services e.g. education, health, aspects of welfare etc.

It makes modern day Russia sound quite liberal.

You'd run a mile!

I'm very, very glad Ireland has snapped out of it and changed radically. But, I think we need to be extremely careful that we don't look back on those olden days with some kind of green tinted glasses. They were absolutely awful times (particularly the 50s-80s) that saw Ireland run many of our brightest and best out of the country and many of them have never returned.

Think about it though : how many Irish citizens ended up packing their bags and moving to the US, the UK, parts of continental Europe etc because they just couldn't stick it here or, because they had a kid outside marriage, needed to get divorced, were LGBT etc

We (and I use that term to refer to people from that era rather than this era) exiled those who didn't fit in. That's a pretty horrible thing to have done. They were basically denied their right to be Irish and I think we have a hell of a lot to make up for.

marienbad

No

SpaceTime wrote: »

Ireland was pretty unbelievable before the 1990s in terms of how conservative the laws around all sorts of things, particularly contraception were.

We were quite literally up there with the most conservative places on the planet and it was really causing us serious issues internationally.

I know personally of people who wouldn't move here / live here because of it, so didn't invest here. This is talking to friends of my parents, older colleagues etc who would have been involved in business in the 1970s/80s.

For our generation (I certainly wasn't around in the 1970s and was a very young kid in the 80s), we don't have any idea notion of just how screwy Ireland was at that time. It had managed to take 1920s British conservatism and add a load of extra stuff to it.

I know for many of us when we think back to the 1980s it was all nostalgia and the Den.. zig & zag and Bosco and all those positive things. But it was set against a backdrop of some of the most horrendously conservative legislation on contraception, reproduction, divorce etc that have probably been seen in any Western Democracy ever.

Can you imagine from a 2014 Irish perspective if you were considering investing in several European countries and had to move to one of them and one of them would actually insist that you couldn't use contraception with your own partner and that you'd have to 'accept whatever children God sent you'....
Meanwhile, you couldn't get divorced, even if your marriage had fallen apart or even worse, if your marriage had turned violent and you'd an abusive spouse.
And you couldn't be gay/bi either and (even if not very heavily enforced) you risked prosecution for it..
Meanwhile, the place was over-run with nuns and priests doing things that you'd normally expect to be state / social services e.g. education, health, aspects of welfare etc.

It makes modern day Russia sound quite liberal.

You'd run a mile!

I'm very, very glad Ireland has snapped out of it and changed radically. But, I think we need to be extremely careful that we don't look back on those olden days with some kind of green tinted glasses. They were absolutely awful times (particularly the 50s-80s) that saw Ireland run many of our brightest and best out of the country and many of them have never returned.

Think about it though : how many Irish citizens ended up packing their bags and moving to the US, the UK, parts of continental Europe etc because they just couldn't stick it here or, because they had a kid outside marriage, needed to get divorced, were LGBT etc

We (and I use that term to refer to people from that era rather than this era) exiled those who didn't fit in. That's a pretty horrible thing to have done. They were basically denied their right to be Irish and I think we have a hell of a lot to make up for.

I remember those times very well , tough being a 'liberal leftie' in dem days

Bannasidhe

No

SpaceTime wrote: »

Ireland was pretty unbelievable before the 1990s in terms of how conservative the laws around all sorts of things, particularly contraception were.

We were quite literally up there with the most conservative places on the planet and it was really causing us serious issues internationally.

I know personally of people who wouldn't move here / live here because of it, so didn't invest here. This is talking to friends of my parents, older colleagues etc who would have been involved in business in the 1970s/80s.

For our generation (I certainly wasn't around in the 1970s and was a very young kid in the 80s), we don't have any idea notion of just how screwy Ireland was at that time. It had managed to take 1920s British conservatism and add a load of extra stuff to it.

I know for many of us when we think back to the 1980s it was all nostalgia and the Den.. zig & zag and Bosco and all those positive things. But it was set against a backdrop of some of the most horrendously conservative legislation on contraception, reproduction, divorce etc that have probably been seen in any Western Democracy ever.

There was, however, a feeling in the air in the 1990s that things were finally changing in Ireland as symbolised by the election of Mary Robinson. I came back to Ireland in 1993 with my English Lesbian OH and my son of Gay parents as I wanted him to be Irish not Irish in Exile or English. And yes - he was bullied in School. Not because he had two Mammies, but because he had an English accent - much like most of the 'Irish' soccer team at the time...:rolleyes:

Many of my Irish friends and colleagues also returned around the same time as there seemed to be an unspoken but compelling desire to come home and change the country rather than live in exile and let the conservatives continue to drive the non-conformists out.

We all, gay and straight, had run screaming (Slattery's Coach to London was enough to make anyone scream) out of No Abortion in the Constitution/ No contraception/ Male homosexuality illegal/No divorce Ireland so we could live but very much felt ourselves to be exiles.

Ireland is the 80s was so awful that if you were queer, lefty, not Catholic etc etc Thatcher's Britain offered a relatively liberal sanctuary. Ironic eh!

diddlybit

No

@Spacetime That's a wonderful post

A Scoundrel

No

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

I don't think it's worth getting into semantics, but sodomy is usually used, especially in the context of denigrating homosexuals, to refer to anal sex. Dictionary definitions would reflect this.

What matters in terms of the discussion, is the biblical meaning, or alternatively, the theological meaning being prescibed by the adherents who oppose 'sodomy'.

Now, maybe Fry's interviewees did not understand the meaning ascribed to sodomy by their religious leaders, but in almost every case, the wider "non-procreative" meaning is the one that religions apply. The common man's understanding is neither here nor there.

So I'm not in agreement their condemnations, but it's worth pointing out that when religious 'authorities' denounce sodomy, they are almost never referring solely to anal sex.

SpaceTime

I honestly think we actually owe it to those people and to ourselves as Irish citizens to stand up for a liberal, inclusive, Ireland that could actually proudly call itself a genuine republic though too.

Sadly, I think the first few decades of Ireland as an independent state allowed vested interests to effectively be incorporated into the state. Instead of a true Republic we ended up with some kind of religious corporatism with the Catholic Church completely intwined with the state itself.

We really need to learn what an actual republic is about i.e. government by the people, of the people and for the people with full equality before the law. It shouldn't matter if you're what your religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs are, what your gender or sexual orientation is, or your race.
Being Irish should be something way beyond any of those things and something that we can all proudly share and that people who chose to move and live here and adopt it can proudly share too.

I would like to see some of our political parties actuality actually start to really 'get' what being a Republic is about. It's a hell of a lot more than the Northern Ireland issue or not being part of the UK and a hell of a lot more than some notion of "holy catholic Ireland" too.

I'm not being anti-religious in saying that, but I strongly object to the fact that some people feel that they should hijack what being Irish is and make it into being an Irish Catholic instead.

The state shouldn't be captured by any vested interest, religious groups, business groups or anything else. Its job is to work for the citizens, not for some narrow interest.

For example, I would like to see the religious prayers and stuff at the start of Oireachtas and other legislative meetings being replaced with an oath to serve the Irish people and to only act in the best interest of Ireland and to act with honesty and good faith.

At present every Irish parliamentary and senate meeting starts with :

http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/a-misc/prayer.htm

Direct, we beseech Thee, O Lord, our actions by Thy holy inspirations and carry them on by Thy gracious assistance; that every word and work of ours may always begin from Thee, and by Thee be happily ended; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

How can you even have a proper debate on something like gay marriage, divorce, abortion, or anything that goes against catholic teaching in an environment like that?
It's a legislature, not mass!

marienbad

No

A Scoundrel wrote: »

What matters in terms of the discussion, is the biblical meaning, or alternatively, the theological meaning being prescibed by the adherents who oppose 'sodomy'.

Now, maybe Fry's interviewees did not understand the meaning ascribed to sodomy by their religious leaders, but in almost every case, the wider "non-procreative" meaning is the one that religions apply. The common man's understanding is neither here nor there.

So I'm not in agreement their condemnations, but it's worth pointing out that when religious 'authorities' denounce sodomy, they are almost never referring solely to anal sex.

So how come we never hear them denouncing it in hetero relationships ?

minidazzler

No

RobertKK wrote: »

I think some so called liberal people want everyone to think the same on all issues and have problems with people from the Iona Institute because it gives a different viewpoint, then they need to look down on the person with an opposing opinion.

If people view marriage as something between a man and a woman or a best place for a child is with parents who are male and female, it is an opinion that is not homophobic, but for some it is homophobic as they have a different opinion and can't understand why someone doesn't want change.

If we live in a free society then people should be allowed to have different opinions without needing to put the person into a box.
If each side allows free speech, then there is no problem. Some would rather those whose opinion they don't like was silenced, which would be a backward step.

they can have their views, they can air their views, what i will not allow and will fight with if ever i run into one of these cnuts in real life, is that they must NOT be allowed to have their way.

they have a right to express themselves, but i think they should observe their right to silence and Get the fcuk over themselves. they are wrong, and they are assholes about it.

Nodin

No

marienbad wrote: »

So how come we never hear them denouncing it in hetero relationships ?

...the catholic church tends to keep a bit quiet on that one, but strictly speaking non-procreative sex of any kind (and this is within marriage, remember) is a no-no. No oral, manual, no nada. If it can't make babies, its a no go, with the possible exception of a quick squeeze of the bosoms, to get herself in the mood.

Maximus Alexander

No

A Scoundrel wrote: »

What matters in terms of the discussion, is the biblical meaning, or alternatively, the theological meaning being prescibed by the adherents who oppose 'sodomy'.

Now, maybe Fry's interviewees did not understand the meaning ascribed to sodomy by their religious leaders, but in almost every case, the wider "non-procreative" meaning is the one that religions apply. The common man's understanding is neither here nor there.

So I'm not in agreement their condemnations, but it's worth pointing out that when religious 'authorities' denounce sodomy, they are almost never referring solely to anal sex.

Regardless it remains irrelevant to any discussion of homosexuality since in absolute terms there are far more straight people practicing sodomy, by either definition, than there are gays. By proportion it's probably about the same.