Is David Norris Toast?

skregs · 02-08-2011 06:36PM

ULMarksman wrote: »

By Definition:

The term statutory rape generally refers to sex between an adult and a sexually mature minor past the age of puberty. Sexual relations with a prepubescent child, generically called "child molestation," is typically treated as a more serious crime.

You don't often see the word 'generally' in a definition. I notice you completely ignored the first paragraph of its wikipedia entry where it mentions adults engaging in sex with minors, "sexual assault," "rape of a child," "corruption of a minor," and The laws presume coercion

But if you want to have a gander at how long you'll be in prison for doing this in Ireland, here you go:

http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/acts/2006/a1506.pdf

ULMarksman · 02-08-2011 06:54PM

anymore wrote: »

First I didnt mention the age, second i dont know any hetrosexual kid would wants to be approached by some pervert preying on young teens. third even discussing it is unpleasant so i will not post further on the matter.

What planet are you living on? So you are saying that Homosexual kids like to be approached by some pervert preying on young teens.

You don't know many 15 or 16 year olds do you?

I can't comment on other hetrosexual or homosexual 15 or 16 year olds but I can say that I was sexual active at 15/16.

ULMarksman · 02-08-2011 07:00PM

skregs wrote: »

You don't often see the word 'generally' in a definition. I notice you completely ignored the first paragraph of its wikipedia entry where it mentions adults engaging in sex with minors, "sexual assault," "rape of a child," "corruption of a minor," and The laws presume coercion

But if you want to have a gander at how long you'll be in prison for doing this in Ireland, here you go:

http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/acts/2006/a1506.pdf

I did not ignore it. Minor is exactly what the above is talking about. Child by definition is usually 12 and under. Statutory rape is aimed at adolescence which is usually 13 upwards to 18 or in Ireland 17. I did not say that it was acceptable but people trying to use the shock factor by throwing in child abuse etc etc is misleading.

I dont need to know what the sentence is as I would never be in the position to worry about it.

Judgement Day · 02-08-2011 07:06PM

One down, at least two still to go.

Seriously though, who is going to start the "Michael D is Brown Bread thread?" I came across some old newscuttings today so I may kick off unless somebody else would like to go first. Just in case I can't whip up enough apathy I'm also having a small punt with Paddy Power who have Michael D head and shoulders above the rest of the posse at 5/6 on.

http://www.paddypower.com/bet/politics/other-politics/next-irish-president?ev_oc_grp_ids=33552

mossyc123 · 02-08-2011 07:11PM

kerash wrote: »

I can't make head nor tail of the point you're making. As for 'riding a young one' that's not illegal - rape is.

It is if your a middle aged man.

You deserve an insult for not picking up on that up.

Basic point I was making for dummies:

There shouldn't even be a debate about this, he did wrong and if it was the likes of a Healy-Rae as opposed to a liberal hero and media darling that Norris is we wouldn't even be having the debate.

zuroph · 02-08-2011 07:13PM

kerash wrote: »

As for 'riding a young one' that's not illegal - rape is.

he specified 15, yes, it is. its statutory rape.

fryup · 02-08-2011 07:16PM

its been one smear campaign after another

lets face it....the Irish establishment do not want a gay proddy as president

zuroph · 02-08-2011 07:19PM

kerash wrote: »

He didn't specify the country?

he specified that he got locked up for it, stop changing the subject, its inferred that she was below the legal age.

you do understand the difference between rape and statutory rape right?

Happyman42 · 02-08-2011 07:22PM

It's amazing...what is it with Irish politics. Listening to his radio interview on The Last Word, after all that has gone on and after all that has been said, he just doesn't get it. He thinks letters written about Tibetan monks are the same as the one at the centre of this.
Frankly, nobody gives two hoots what Nawi does and did for Palestinians.

On the basis of that 'soft' interview the man is a fool...imo

HarryPotter41 · 02-08-2011 07:23PM

hotmail.com wrote: »

Wrong again. Ministers didn't the funeral of Douglas Hyde in 1949.

I know of several Catholics that don't believe Protestants go to heaven. I don't believe in anything by the way, but it gives the idea of the ignorance of some Catholics in Ireland.

Just look at the GAA - a Catholic sectarian organisation.

There is no Catholic bigots in Ireland - please give me a break.

So explain how the apparently bigoted Catholic majority voted for Erskine Childers? Are there any Protestant bigots in this country? The GAA is open to everyone and I know people of all creeds and none playing the game. The only person out of touch seems to be your good self.

tayto lover · 02-08-2011 07:25PM

kerash wrote: »

I can't make head nor tail of the point you're making. As for 'riding a young one' that's not illegal - rape is.

Its illegal if she is under 17.

puzzle factory · 02-08-2011 07:25PM

Im so happy he's gone:)

HarryPotter41 · 02-08-2011 07:37PM

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

You're missing the points here:

1) the boy was like 2 months away from the legal age of consent at the time... it's not like he was raping babies.
2) the boy fully consented to the sexual encounters
3) Gay Mitchell wrote one letter to defend an anti-abortionist murderer, where were his other letters for the hundred or so people on death row in Florida in the 90s? In fact, where was his letter for Roy Allen Stewart?

Let me throw something in here as someone who once coached kids the age of this boy, would anybody here who is throwing out this two months away from age of consent, consensual sex stuff think it would have been okay for me to enter into a consensual sexual relationship with any of those kids in the same situation or would it have been an abuse of my position with that child? I think it would have been an horrific breach of trust on my part and that people use that as some kind of moral defence astonishes me

ULMarksman · 02-08-2011 07:50PM

HarryPotter41 wrote: »

Let me throw something in here as someone who once coached kids the age of this boy, would anybody here who is throwing out this two months away from age of consent, consensual sex stuff think it would have been okay for me to enter into a consensual sexual relationship with any of those kids in the same situation or would it have been an abuse of my position with that child? I think it would have been an horrific breach of trust on my part and that people use that as some kind of moral defence astonishes me

I would believe that you took advantage of the young man or women in your care. I believe that a man or women in their late twenties and on has no right to be with a man or women under 20 tbh.

The fact of the matter is that David Norris didn't commit the crime, didn't condone the crime, he asked for clemency for the man he considered of good character and he felt that made a mistake and wouldn't do it again. I believe it should be left to the people to decide.

HarryPotter41 · 02-08-2011 07:55PM

ULMarksman wrote: »

I would believe that you took advantage of the young man or women in your care. I believe that a man or women in their late twenties and on has no right to be with a man or women under 20 tbh.

The fact of the matter is that David Norris didn't commit the crime, didn't condone the crime, he asked for clemency for the man he considered of good character and he felt that made a mistake and wouldn't do it again. I believe it should be left to the people to decide.

If I was in a relationship with someone, and they were convicted of statutory rape, and taking into account to do that they also had to cheat on me, I think my view of their moral character would be such that they certainly would be getting no character reference from me.

ULMarksman · 02-08-2011 07:59PM

HarryPotter41 wrote: »

If I was in a relationship with someone, and they were convicted of statutory rape, and taking into account to do that they also had to cheat on me, I think my view of their moral character would be such that they certainly would be getting no character reference from me.

That's easily said. I don't know how I'd react tbh. until it happen to me. but hey that's me.

Maybe just maybe David Norris is a better man then me. He forgave

anymore · 02-08-2011 08:35PM

HarryPotter41 wrote: »

If I was in a relationship with someone, and they were convicted of statutory rape, and taking into account to do that they also had to cheat on me, I think my view of their moral character would be such that they certainly would be getting no character reference from me.

I wonder if many Irish journalists will be willing to point this point to Norris ? Very few i imagine.

hestia · 02-08-2011 08:45PM

anymore wrote: »

Therefore no one else is allowed to have a different opinion ?

If Norris were a priest then perhaps he would be able to stay on, say like, the primate of Ireland, Cardinal Brady.

There is a history of TDs writing on Dail paper pleading clemency for convicted rapists. Does that also make them the same as the Catholic Church?

I leave my last word to Fintan O'Toole's researched and fact-based article from today:

THERE IS a simple principle to be applied to the case of David Norris’s pleas on behalf of a man convicted of having sex with a 15-year-old boy.
He should be treated exactly like any other politician caught doing the same thing. He should not be given a free pass because of his immense contribution to the cause of equality and decency in this society. Neither should his actions be used to vent the closet homophobia that lies behind so much of the antipathy to him. Let’s try, rather, to be dispassionate and morally consistent.

Let’s start with the obvious. Politicians should not be trying to influence sentences for those convicted of serious crimes. Full stop. No qualifications, no excuses. (Sexual crimes obviously have a particular emotional resonance, but the principle should be no different for any serious offence.) David Norris used his position as a member of the Oireachtas to try to influence a court.

His first letter was on Seanad notepaper and signed in his capacity as a member of the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs. His second, longer letter made extensive reference to his public positions and even to the possibility of him running for the presidency.This is inexcusable. It is quite understandable (even admirable) at a human level that he would have wished to make a plea for mercy for someone he loved. But to do so in an official capacity is an abuse of public office. Public representatives must know how to distinguish the personal from the official. If he is ever to be president, David Norris has a big job to do in convincing the Irish people that he fully understands that distinction.

Given that Norris was completely wrong in this case, what are the consequences of treating him exactly the same as anyone else in his position? Let’s look at the precedents. My educated guess – based on the exceptional cases that have been exposed – is that, since 1997 when Norris wrote the Israeli letters, hundreds of similar letters have been written to Irish courts by other members of the Oireachtas.

In 2002, when it emerged that the then junior minister Bobby Molloy had intervened in a much more serious way on behalf of a child rapist, Patrick Naughton, the then taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, defended him on the basis that “that’s what politicians do. A Teachta Dála is a public representative and you make representations.” There is nothing to suggest that Ahern was wrong about this. In relation to child rape alone, we know of three specific cases of TDs making pleas on their behalf. In 2007, it emerged that Fianna Fáil TD Tony Killeen had twice written to the minister for justice seeking early release for a heinous double rapist, Joseph Nugent. Fine Gael’s Pat Breen went so far as to put down a parliamentary question about when Nugent would be released. The Cork Labour TD Kathleen Lynch wrote a letter to a judge in 2008 to tell him that a convicted rapist of two children came from “a good family”.

What happened when these interventions came to public attention? Molloy eventually resigned – but that was because his office had gone even further and tried to contact the judge directly. The other three subsequently gained political promotion: Killeen to the cabinet as minister for defence; Breen to the chairmanship of the Oireachtas committee on foreign affairs; and Lynch to a junior ministry with responsibility for disability and older people. It is absolutely clear that the existing standard in Ireland is that making representations on behalf of a child rapist does not debar you from public office.

So, is Norris’s offence worse than these others? Hardly. It relates to a crime that, while utterly inexcusable, is less violent and brutal than the others. And, on a human level, it is considerably less cynical. Killeen, Lynch and Breen made their interventions purely as part of the demented system of clientelism. They did it to get votes. Norris did it out of a misguided sense of loyalty to someone who had been the love of his life.
It is also relevant that a plea to a foreign court was much less likely to result in improper influence than an intervention by a TD in Ireland’s intimate nexus of local and political connections.

So, we come to the key question: should David Norris be the one who takes the hit so that this kind of abuse is ended once and for all?
There is certainly a case to be made that he should be – sometimes, a high-profile casualty is needed to scare other politicians into righteousness. But isn’t it just a bit too convenient for our system that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour TDs should get away with it while the Independent gets hammered? And shouldn’t we feel uneasy at the notion that the gay man whose own sexuality was criminalised for so long is held to a higher standard than straight politicians?

David Norris has a lot of explaining to do, but he should be allowed to do it in a free electoral debate.

Sunnyisland · 02-08-2011 08:48PM

Listening to David norris on the news this evening, He came across dignified and apologized to the victim of the rape, Reading here the posts from a lot of his supporters and apologist's they could well do take a lesson from him.

old hippy · 02-08-2011 11:35PM

A very successful campaign, all in all.

HarryPotter41 · 02-08-2011 11:41PM

ULMarksman wrote: »

That's easily said. I don't know how I'd react tbh. until it happen to me. but hey that's me.

Maybe just maybe David Norris is a better man then me. He forgave

Or going by his previous magill interview and his defence of O'Searcaigh, perhaps he didn't see it as a big deal

HarryPotter41 · 02-08-2011 11:43PM

realies wrote: »

Listening to David norris on the news this evening, He came across dignified and apologized to the victim of the rape, Reading here the posts from a lot of his supporters and apologist's they could well do take a lesson from him.

Yes, wonderful to hear his apology to the victim 14 years after he looked for leniency for the perpetrator of the crime.

Godge · 03-08-2011 12:52AM

zuroph wrote: »

but if it was wanted and welcome you can accept that it could have been pleasant, right?

That has to be the sickest comment I have read on boards for a very long time. You are suggesting that sexual encounters between a 50-year old and a 15-year old are acceptable and could be pleasant.

Let's get this straight. There is an issue in Ireland about sexual relations between teenagers close in age and the starkness of the law in relation to this. But it is only a few sickos who are going around saying that 50-year old men can have their way with 15-year old boys and girls.

zuroph · 03-08-2011 01:03AM

Godge wrote: »

That has to be the sickest comment I have read on boards for a very long time. You are suggesting that sexual encounters between a 50-year old and a 15-year old are acceptable and could be pleasant.

Let's get this straight. There is an issue in Ireland about sexual relations between teenagers close in age and the starkness of the law in relation to this. But it is only a few sickos who are going around saying that 50-year old men can have their way with 15-year old boys and girls.

I never said 50. Plus, I'm looking at it from the eyes of the 15 year old. say his or her birthday is next month and the legal age is 16 where they live. they fancy an older person and sleep with them, and nothing bad ever comes of it. How does it affect you in any way?? Sickos my hole, we're just trying to point out that there is a scale here, this isnt the same as forcing yourself on a 6 year old against their will.

and yes, I am suggesting it could be pleasant. When I was 15, if there was a really hot 50 year old woman who i thought I could score, I'd have been there.

ResearchWill · 03-08-2011 01:11AM

Godge wrote: »

That has to be the sickest comment I have read on boards for a very long time. You are suggesting that sexual encounters between a 50-year old and a 15-year old are acceptable and could be pleasant.

Let's get this straight. There is an issue in Ireland about sexual relations between teenagers close in age and the starkness of the law in relation to this. But it is only a few sickos who are going around saying that 50-year old men can have their way with 15-year old boys and girls.

First of all the following is not saying legal age of consent should be lowered on the other hand it is asking how as a society we treat children

In your example above yes the 15 year old can not consent, but under our law the same 15 year old can rape the said 50 year old and be criminally responsible. In fact a 12 year old in the case of rape can be tried and convicted. But can not consent.

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/justice/children_and_young_offenders/children_and_the_criminal_justice_system_in_ireland.html

Godge · 03-08-2011 01:14AM

zuroph wrote: »

I never said 50. Plus, I'm looking at it from the eyes of the 15 year old. say his or her birthday is next month and the legal age is 16 where they live. they fancy an older person and sleep with them, and nothing bad ever comes of it. How does it affect you in any way?? Sickos my hole, we're just trying to point out that there is a scale here, this isnt the same as forcing yourself on a 6 year old against their will.

Ok, Nawi was 40 when convicted in 1992 of statutory rape of a 15-year old. If you were trying to defend a ten-year gap, some chance, but what does a fat aging 40-year old have to offer a 15-year old but a reflection of his status or money?

I know of abused 15-year olds, I have teenage children, I am fully aware of sexual relations between peers at a young age but you are trying to defend the indefensible, there is no excuse for a 40-year old person having sex with a 15-year old boy or girl. I will continue to call such a person a sicko.

Pompey Magnus · 03-08-2011 01:17AM

zuroph wrote: »

I never said 50. Plus, I'm looking at it from the eyes of the 15 year old. say his or her birthday is next month and the legal age is 16 where they live. they fancy an older person and sleep with them, and nothing bad ever comes of it. How does it affect you in any way??

Thats all well and good, but how about we consider those minors that think they are ready for sex (or convinced into thinking it by an influencial adult) but are wrong and end up emotionally damaged from the experience? Their tough luck?

The age of consent is there to protect people like them, it is not there as a means of the government intentionally thinking up ways of spoiling the fun of those that are ready and prepared for sex.

jojo123jo · 03-08-2011 01:19AM

HarryPotter41 wrote: »

If I was in a relationship with someone, and they were convicted of statutory rape, and taking into account to do that they also had to cheat on me, I think my view of their moral character would be such that they certainly would be getting no character reference from me.

My understanding is that while they remained in touch, their relationship had already ended some years earlier.

Godge · 03-08-2011 01:20AM

zuroph wrote: »

I never said 50. Plus, I'm looking at it from the eyes of the 15 year old. say his or her birthday is next month and the legal age is 16 where they live. they fancy an older person and sleep with them, and nothing bad ever comes of it. How does it affect you in any way?? Sickos my hole, we're just trying to point out that there is a scale here, this isnt the same as forcing yourself on a 6 year old against their will.

Ok, Nawi was 40 when convicted in 1992 of statutory rape of a 15-year old. If you were trying to defend a ten-year gap, some chance, but what does a fat aging 40-year old have to offer a 15-year old but a reflection of his status or money?

I know of abused 15-year olds, I have teenage children, I am fully aware of sexual relations between peers at a young age but you are trying to defend the indefensible, there is no excuse for a 40-year old person having sex with a 15-year old boy or girl. I will continue to call such a person a sicko.

zuroph · 03-08-2011 01:28AM

Godge wrote: »

zuroph wrote: »

I never said 50. Plus, I'm looking at it from the eyes of the 15 year old. say his or her birthday is next month and the legal age is 16 where they live. they fancy an older person and sleep with them, and nothing bad ever comes of it. How does it affect you in any way?? Sickos my hole, we're just trying to point out that there is a scale here, this isnt the same as forcing yourself on a 6 year old against their will.

Ok, Nawi was 40 when convicted in 1992 of statutory rape of a 15-year old. If you were trying to defend a ten-year gap, some chance, but what does a fat aging 40-year old have to offer a 15-year old but a reflection of his status or money?

I know of abused 15-year olds, I have teenage children, I am fully aware of sexual relations between peers at a young age but you are trying to defend the indefensible, there is no excuse for a 40-year old person having sex with a 15-year old boy or girl. I will continue to call such a person a sicko.

Who said I was defending Ezra??

Is David Norris Toast?

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