Sir, - In his Irishman's Diary of March 12th, Kevin Myers made a churlish swipe at a group of writers and musicians who had come together to use their creative talent to express their outrage at the recent brutal attack on Robert Drake in Sligo. His unnecessary repetition of the description "an American, a writer and a homosexual" as well as the illogical yoking of this attack to a completely unrelated article more than hints at the underlying prejudice informing this piece.
On the following Tuesday, a letter from Rory O'Hanlon diverted from attacking President McAleese for her views on women priests, to criticise her for a planned visit to the lesbian and gay community centre, Outhouse, and to quote from the New Testament. After the quotation, "men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error" the former High Court Judge adds parenthetically, "surely prophetic words". This can only be read as a profoundly offensive reference to the AIDS epidemic, and is deeply revealing of the ugly reality that lies behind the pseudo-Christianity of this campaigner for family values, and of the true nature of his political agenda.
It is darkly fitting that these two pieces should appear within days of each other, and on the same page. For they are the respectable face of what happened in Sligo. Attacks like those on Robert Drake are not freakish events, they happen in a context. That context is a society where prejudice, hatred and violence are sanctioned by silence, and by utterances of respectable members of the establishment who, in the case of both these men, are routinely given free rein in your paper. - Yours, etc., Michael Cronin,
Valentia Parade, Dublin 7.