Thursday, 28 October 2010

Irish Daily Mail article

Aiden Corkery, a journalist from the Irish Daily Mail picked up a tweet I posted regarding a hate site targeting Senator David Norris two days ago and published an article in today's paper. It's not available online so I've typed out the piece below.

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Norris targeted by hate-filled anti-gay site

A WEBSITE containing homophobic remarks has been created to attack the presidential bid of gay rights campaigner David Norris.

Despite appearing under the apparently pro-Norris name of davidnorris4president.com, the website repeatedly refers to Mr Norris' homosexuality.

It claims that homosexuality is a 'lifestyle which is often associated with sexual promiscuity' and that there is 'no genetic evidence' to support being gay.

'David has embraced a lifestyle which is blatantly out of line with traditional biblical morality,' it states. The slickly-designed site encourages fans to visit campaignforconscience.org, which contains even stronger attacks on the gay community.

And it describes homosexuality as a 'self-destructive lifestyle' as well as criticising the recent Civil Partnership legislation that allows homosexual couples to have their relationships legally recognised for the first time.

Both websites appear to have been created by conservative Christians Seán and Martina Burke who have a family of ten children in Castlebar, Co Mayo. They held a series of protests outside the Dáil in the run-up to the Civil Partnership legislation.

Last night, family spokesman Enoch Burke declined to comment when contacted by the Irish Daily Mail. The existence of the website was highlighted by Labour councillor Dermot Looney.

Mr Looney - who is supporting Labour's Michael D Higgins for the presidency - said he was sickened by the site. 'It reminds me a lot of the attack-style campaigning by the Republican party in the US,' he said.