Fotterel rambles confusedly about homosexuality in Ireland

he makes the odd claim that in Ireland there is a "public climate of fear-mongering, hate crimes and and intolerance" towards homosexuality. Rrright. I suppose that's why he is able to pontificate about the matter in the country's most respectable newspaper. And it must be why Rocco Buttiglione was not allowed become EU Justice Commissoner.

There is a curious ambivilence about his article. He claims the homosexual community is "full of joy", yet a bitter, aggrieved tone pervades the entire piece. He complains that the topic of homosexuality was discussed on Questions and Answers by an all-heterosexual panel, apparently seeing this as evidence of institutional homophobia (in RTE no less!). Then he triumphantly stresses just how accepted homosexuals have become in Irish Society, with a homosexual choir even being allowed sing in St Anne's Church on Dawson Street. He can't seem to make up his mind whether he and his fellow homosexuals are tolerated as equals or not.

The answer is that they are and they aren't. They are fully accepted, indeed celebrated, by liberal sections of the media, liberal Protestant clergy and people who have simply been brought up to tolerate them. But the rest of the the western world has not been deluded into seeing homosexuality as either normal or healthy. Hence Proposition 8, and the fact that homosexuals don't make up a significant enough portion of the population to be on the panel of Questions and Answers every time a discussion of their rights comes up.