Stunned citizens are watching the Senator's statements become ever more bizarre, writes BREDA O'BRIEN
DESPITE HAVING more candidates than ever before, and not one of them admitting to being a Fianna Fáiler, the most common sentiment I have heard this week is that people don’t know who to vote for.
Ah, but get them started on who they want to vote against, and that’s a different story. Gay Mitchell has had his campaign reignited by the entry of Martin McGuinness in the race. Fine Gaelers who might not have been too impressed by the battling Dub, are suddenly galvanised into canvassing by the prospect of a Shinner in the park.
And then, of course, there are those for whom a committed Catholic in the park is a far worse prospect, especially one who is pro-life. Ironic, that, given the views of the now apparently universally loved Mary McAleese. On my bookshelf I have Swimming Against the Tide – Feminist Dissent on the Issue of Abortion. (In the interests of transparency, I should say I have a chapter in it.) The then Prof Mary McAleese wrote the foreword. She highlights the irony that the women who were most courageous in breaking silence on behalf of women, are now in their turn silencing the voices of women with whom they do not agree.
She says, “Nowhere is this more evident than in the debate on abortion where pro-choice feminists agenda settlers have colonised the space, planted their flag and proclaimed that henceforth when the gospel of feminism is preached it shall be preached their way and no other way. Others may come who call themselves feminist, but they will be bogus because when their credentials are checked out, they will be missing the pro-choice badge of admission.”
Strong stuff. Funny that, how someone with strong views can still manage to build bridges, without fulfilling Ian Paisley’s dark warning that bridges are like traitors – they both go over to the other side. Mrs McAleese remained herself, and because of that she could reach out to others.
Mind you, McAleese would never have been elected in the first place without the Fianna Fáil machine behind her. That same Fianna Fáil machine is casting its long shadow, just about all it has left, over Seán Gallagher and even Mary Davis.
Just how did Davis end up on so many boards? A Fianna Fáil connection? Or just that given Fianna Fáil were in power forever, anyone with any ability was bound to end up on a quango or three, even including the Bertie Bowl? Unfortunately, too, her refusal to release councils to help other Independent candidates made her look grasping and ungracious, and her explanations sounded unconvincing.
But nothing, nothing compares to David Norris. There are true homophobes in this country who hate him because of his sexual orientation. That number is tiny in comparison to the number of stunned citizens watching him become ever more bizarre in his statements and rationalisations. It cannot be said that the media are protecting him or promoting him, given the kind of robust interviews he has received in recent days. However, the content of the latest letters was sufficient to cause most of his loyal campaign team to disappear, according to the Sunday Times.
If that is true, both people who received the infamous letters and former campaign members surely have a moral duty to disclose what is in them. If they do not, how can they justify hiding from the electorate key information about a potential president? How is that different from hiding the truth about colleagues in the way the Catholic Church did?
I had dinner with Norris once, because we were both speaking at a conference organised by the Brigidine Sisters. He is a relative of the founder of the Brigidines, Daniel Delany, and very proud of it. The fact that Ireland is so small that one of our most famous Prods could be related to the founder of a Catholic religious order is one of the things I love about living here.
We got on famously. I still would not have voted for him, not because he is gay, but because we disagree on everything from the age of consent to the decriminalisation of drugs. But more importantly, I believed that Norris would be incapable of spending seven years in the Áras without igniting controversy, probably because of some crude utterance which might be hilarious on the Late, Late Show, but not from a head of state.
David has left hostages to fortune all over the place, for example in his interview in The Irish Soul in Dialogue, by Stephen Costello.
Among other things, he says, “But even I have to recognise that gay relationships are not exactly the same and lazily creating a model based on the heterosexual one is foolish. Because gay people are outside the structures of society, it’s a wonderful opportunity to create more manageable relationships.”
Not exactly an endorsement of gay marriage? He goes on to say that he would have been quite happy living with Ezra (Nawi) and Nawi’s new partner, Isaac. When asked about who he would like to meet after death, he flippantly asks “What’s the point in being a star-f*****r on a cloud as well as everywhere else?” He was only interested in meeting Ezra in the afterlife.
Incidentally, he also named Michael D Higgins as the only Irish politician he admires, in spite of his having “as silly a voice as I do . . . squeaking away”.
The same Michael D might be squeaking his way to the Áras, if only because he is the least unwanted candidate.