The Iona Blog

Same-sex marriage and ‘homophobia’ on the BBC

The debate about homophobia and same-sex marriage was the subject of an item on BBC World’s Have Your Say programme, available here. Rory O’Neill took part in a discussion with Caroline Farrow of Catholic Voices and Brandon Ambrosino, a gay writer who supports gay marriage but, in his own words, wants to “open up the...

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Marriage in Ireland: a quick response to Fintan O’Toole

In his latest opinion piece in The Irish Times, Fintan O’Toole takes issue with The Iona Institute’s thesis that marriage in Ireland is in decline. On the contrary, says O’Toole, marriage “has proven to be far more robust than either conservatives or radicals ever imagined.” Unfortunately, Fintan can only make such a broad claim by ignoring...

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Breda O’Brien describes the personal impact of receiving hate mail

Breda O’Brien was interviewed by Hugh Linehan today for the Irish Times’ ‘Inside Politics’ podcast. She speaks in a very heartfelt way about the impact the vilification she has been subjected to by some people for disagreeing with same-sex marriage has had on her, as well as giving her thoughts on the whole controversy surrounding...

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Timothy Radcliffe sets the right tone on same-sex marriage

The Dominican Timothy Radcliffe would be no-one’s idea of a ‘conservative’ in theological terms or any other terms for that matter. In a very interesting blog on the issue of same-sex marriage that he wrote for the Guardian newspaper he welcomed “the wave of support for same-sex marriage”, but at the same time reaffirms marriage...

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The debate about homophobia progresses

A few interesting developments in the ongoing debate about the uses and misuses of the word ‘homophobia’: First, Paddy Manning and our director David Quinn were on Prime Time opposite Senator Ivana Bacik and Brian Finnegan. Link here. For what it’s worth, both Bacik and Finnegan agreed that opposition to gay marriage was not automatically...

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The meaning of homophobia discussed on Tonight with Vincent Browne

Tuesday night’s episode of Tonight with Vincent Browne featured Kevin Brophy, the solicitor who represented The Iona Institute in our dispute with RTE, and Paddy Manning, a gay man who opposes gay marriage, discussing the use of the word ‘homophobia’ Paul Murphy MEP and Noeline Blackwell of the Free Legal Advice Centre were also on...

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George Hook calls it right on free speech in ‘homophobia’ debate

On yesterday’s edition of Newstalk’s The Right Hook programme, George Hook won a victory for common sense, and for the real meaning of free speech. Hook was speaking to Senator Ivana Bacik about the protest organised by LGBT Noise objecting to RTE’s apology and financial settlement with a number of people, including representatives of the...

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Can we have a civil debate on same-sex marriage please?

In his column in The Irish Independent, David Quinn details some of the abusive and threatening emails received in the past fortnight by  The Iona Institute and calls for a civil debate on same-sex marriage. Click here to read his column.

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Ruairi Quinn’s flawed vision of a ‘neutral’ education system

If we look at the words and actions of Ruairí Quinn in his time as Minister for Education, a clear pattern begins to emerge.  One big idea unites his suggestion that schools use the time allocated for religious education to teach Maths and the Forum on Patronage’s proposal that Catholic ‘Stand Alone Schools’ move away...

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RTE apologises to Iona Institute for ‘homophobia’ remark

On the Saturday Night Show last weekend, presenter Brendan O’Connor read out an apology to Breda O’Brien, The Iona Institute, and writer and broadcaster John Waters after a guest a fortnight before had accused all of the aforementioned parties of  being ‘homophobic’. RTE has also agreed to pay damages to the injured parties. The apology...

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