FERGUS O'CALLAGHAN of Dublin 2, in a letter published in last Saturday's Irish Times, asked a question that amounts to rather more than a question. He cited a reference in my column last Friday to the idea that "electing a gay candidate for president would somehow achieve the objective of 'expressing contempt for the political process and the higher offices of State' ". He rather pointedly asked whether I would "care to elaborate on this", adding: "Can we only express approval for our politics and offices of State by discriminating against gays?"
I would be happy to elaborate on what I wrote, which had a somewhat different meaning to that which O’Callaghan managed to extract.
Firstly, there is the old problem with the word “discrimination”.
Every democratic choice is precisely a matter of discrimination: I vote for one candidate rather than another, sometimes for explicit reasons, more often for personal and complex ones. “Discriminating against gays” is a different matter, being one of the great secular sins of our time.
What I was talking about last week was that presidential candidates Norris and McGuinness were likely to appeal to voters seeking to make “anti-establishment” statements. Another reader, Michael Nugent of Dublin 9, in a letter published last Monday, suggested it was “absolutely shameful” to place a gay candidate on a par with a former terrorist, as though I had equated homosexuality with terrorism, which I had not. In due course, I suspect, we will all come to realise it is better to avoid commenting on certain issues, for fear of such distortion. But, as long as basic democratic freedoms remain in place, let us continue to try.
There is a difference between a “gay candidate” – or a “gay president” – and “a candidate/president who is gay”. I do not know how anyone could object to someone’s candidacy on the basis of his or her sexuality, nor am I aware of any candidate in this country who failed to get elected – ie, who suffered the kind of “discrimination” O’Callaghan was alluding to – on this basis. A president who happens to be gay is like a president with blue eyes or a bald head: his or her homosexuality is neither here nor there. We did not elect Douglas Hyde or Eamon de Valera because they were “straight” – if indeed they were. The job of president has nothing to do with the sexuality of the incumbent, nor should it have.
One of the less positive contributions to Irish culture of the gay lobby has been the idea that sexuality represents the apotheosis of human desiring, a reductive and damaging idea that leads to much grief and misfortune. To provide this reduction with the totem of the presidency would be regressive and divisive, enabling that office to become a vehicle for a statement that has nothing to do with its constitutional functions. It would turn the presidency into an ideological battering-ram, to adapt it to the objective of a minority of citizens, and therefore to show disrespect for the office and for the Constitution which requires the president to swear an oath to dedicate his abilities to “the service and welfare of the people of Ireland” – presumably all the people, rather than a tiny minority.
But what I was chiefly alluding to last week was a tendency among sections of the public and media to promote the candidacy of David Norris on the basis that his gayness offers Irish society an opportunity to advertise its “progressiveness”. I do not suggest Norris regards his candidacy in this way – my general impression being that he does not. However, many of his supporters clearly do – for example, attacking as “homophobic” anyone who dares to question his background or track record. This tactic is in ways comparable to the Sinn Féin strategy of using the moral blackmail of “peacemaking” to silence dissent and avoid discussion of the party’s past.
As citizens, we have a right to debate every aspect of proposed shifts in our laws or culture. It is unacceptable that any group should be able to protect its objectives and agenda from such scrutiny behind a veil of piety or political correctness. Nor is it appropriate that the office of president be used as a shield for radical agendas that remain covert until after the fact.
It is clear the gay agenda goes farther than a demand for an end to pernicious forms of discrimination. It also demands that we turn inside out fundamental elements of human society – for example, the social norms arising from the biological basis of the human family. Many of those promoting or facilitating such changes are not themselves gay, but just the usual lazy self-styled “liberals” who attach themselves to fashionable causes, portray complex issues as simple matters of “progressives” versus “traditionalists”, and really have no interest in issues of fairness and justice unless the wronged parties tick the right boxes. All that matters is the advancement of “progressiveness”, and giving two fingers to those who disagree with them.
To surrender the presidency to such elements would indeed be to show contempt for the highest office in the land.