80% of those polled said that people in same sex relationships should be able to have the same rights as traditional families, 41% said they had some reservations about adoption by gay couples.
49% of people said they believed in equal rights for gay people, but had some reservations about same-sex marriage.
41% of respondents said they believe those who oppose same sex marriage rights are homophobic while 59% disagreed.
[Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni]
The Ugandan government is defending strict anti-gay proposals that would jail homosexuals for life, even if it means losing the country’s foreign aid.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has announced he would sign the anti-homosexuality legislation into law, despite warnings from Western allies, the Agence France-Presse reported.
“We shall not care losing the financial support from our partners if only we are left alone,” said Minister for Ethics and Integrity Simon Lokodo, adding that Ugandans would rather “die poor than live in an immoral nation.”
Uganda Defends Anti Gay Law Despite Foreign pressure (Wahsington Post)
Pic: Forward.com
“It’s not a generalisation… in every sphere of life that you meet a gay man or gay people in a social environment, the way I look at it after talking to them; they have very little interest in sport.”
Former Ireland rugby international Neil Francis.
Gay people “have very little interest in sport” – Former rugby player (Newstalk)
Apparently people like me don’t play ‘manly’ sports so looking forward to training tomorrow night in the ‘unmanly’ sport of hurling
— Conor Cusack (@Conor14Cusack) February 16, 2014
“There will be some subtitles, but don’t turn off. This is our story. We really appreciate you giving us your time. This is our story, our need to be loved.”
Galway actor Kieran Coppinger, 33, above, appeals for people to watch a new RTÉ documentary called Somebody To Love, about sexuality and disability, RTÉ One, on Monday, at 9.35pm.
Thanks Tara O’Brien
[Fine Gael TD Jerry Buttimer (left) with Brian Hayes and Enda Kenny during the 2011 General Election]
A Fine Gael TD comes out to Enda.
…[Enda Kenny]’s a man in his mid 60s from the west of Ireland who may be uncomfortable and who may have gone on a big journey himself, and he has, he showed me great empathy and support and affirmation”
…“He looked at me and he gave me a dig into the chest and he says ‘you’re still the same guy, I’m still mad about you, let’s go do this’.Jerry Buttimer to Matt Cooper on The Last Word on Today FM this evening.
Listen here
Thanks Mary Carroll
(Photocall Ireland)
[Newly-elected new York Mayor Bill de Blasio]
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has confirmed he will boycott the city’s St Patrick’s Day parade due to the effective exclusion of the LGBT community from the event.
He is the first mayor in over 20 years to do so.
“I simply disagree with the organisers of that parade in their exclusion of some individuals in this city,” he said. He stopped short of barring city employees [police and fire officers] from marching in uniform, disappointing many LGBT advocacy groups.
De Blasio to Skip St. Patrick’s Day Parade; Cites Exclusion of Gay Groups (New York Times)
New York Mayor to boycott St Patrick’s Day parade over LGBT exclusion (RTE)
Previously: The New York St Patrick’s Day Parade Guidelines
(HuffPo)
They sent Paddy O’Gorman to The George to find out about homophobia.
— Oireachtas Retort (@Oireachtas_RX) February 4, 2014
Meanwhile…
It's not about combating homophobia. It's about we want to stamp our feet and scream homophobe at you and shut up bigot.
— John McGuirk (@john_mcguirk) February 4, 2014
Panti Bliss aka Rory O’Neill (above) appeared on RTÉ One’s ‘Saturday Night Show’ and talked to Brendan O’Connor about his life.
On Sunday, our Lars Biscuits posted a short clip from the interview and an accompanying transcript.
Last night, RTE asked us to remove the video of the interview as “concerns have been raised about its content”. [We have asked who raised the concerns and are awaiting a reply from the station].
They further cautioned: “You are hereby put on notice that the publication and continued publication of this interview and any transcripts thereof may be defamatory.”
So we totally freaked out and removed the post.
We are unable to embed the video for copyright reasons but have reposted the transcript (below) as we believe the question of what is a homophobe is one of opinion, the subject is one of public interest, the opinion is based on facts stated or known (e.g. Breda,/John/Iona’s opposition to gay marriage) and it appears to be honestly held.
Therefore (until we hear otherwise)…
Rory O’Neill: “…but of course I’ve met people who have just absolutely had awful, terrible experiences coming out to their families and..”
Brendan O’Connor: “And but a lot has changed hasn’t it since then like?”
RO’N: “So much has changed. And I think em a small country like Ireland sometimes we get a bad rap because people think “oh small conservative country blah blah blah”. But actually I think a small country like Ireland changes much faster than a big country because absolutely…I’m..think about it every single person in this audience has a cousin or a neighbour or the guy that you work with who is a flaming queen. I mean you all know one. And it’s very hard to hold prejudices against people when you actually know those people. And Ireland because it’s such small communities grouped together, everybody knows the local gay and you know maybe twenty years ago it was okay to be really mean about him but nowadays it’s just not okay to be really mean about him. The only place that you see it’s okay to be really horrible and mean about gays is you know on the internet in the comments and you know people who make a living writing opinion pieces for newspapers. You know there’s a couple of them that really cheese..”
BO’C: “Who are they?”
RO’N: “Oh well the obvious ones. You know Breda O’Brien [Irish Times Columnist] today, oh my God you know banging on about gay priests and all. The usual suspects, the John Waters and all of those people, the Iona Institute crowd. I mean I just..you know just…Feck Off! Get the hell out of my life. Get out of my life. I mean..[applause from audience] why…it astounds me…astounds me that there are people out there in the world who devote quite a large amount of their time and energies to trying to stop people you know, achieving happiness because that is what the people like the Iona Institute are at.”
BO’C: “I don’t know. I don’t know. I know one of the people that you mentioned there which is John Waters. I wouldn’t have thought that John Waters is homophobic?”
RO’N: “Oh listen, the problem is with the word ‘homophobic’, people imagine that if you say “Oh he’s a homophobe” that he’s a horrible monster who goes around beating up gays you know that’s not the way it is. Homophobia can be very subtle. I mean it’s like the way you know racism is very subtle. I would say that every single person in the world is racist to some extent because that’s how we order the world in our minds. We group people. You know it’s just how our minds work so that’s okay but you need to be aware of your tendency towards racism and work against it. And I don’t mind, I don’t care how you dress it up if you are arguing for whatever good reasons or you know whatever your impulses…”
BO’C: “Because it is what you believe, it’s your faith or that, yeah?”
RO’N: “…it could be good impulses..and you might believe that these impulses are good because you’re worried about society as a whole and all this rubbish. What it boils down to is if you’re going to argue that gay people need to be treated in any way differently than everybody else or should be in anyway less, or their relationships should be in anyway less then I’m sorry, yes you are a homophobe and the good thing to do is to sit, step back, recognise that you have some homophobic tendencies and work on that. You know stop spending so much of your life you know devoting energies to writing things, arguing things, coming on TV to do anything to try and stop people achieving what they think they need for happiness.”
We offer a right of reply to anyone mentioned.
Previously: Panti At The Abbi
Also: Ignorance is Not Panti Bliss (Matthew Mulligan, Trinity News)
http://vimeo.com/83843825
Novena.
A short Irish documentary/work in progress YOU can help finish.
Ah go on.