Breda O’Brien, of the Iona Institute, wrote an article for the Irish Times recently with the intriguing title: “Activists using ‘homophobia’ as a bullying tactic”. She opens her piece by patting herself on her back: “it takes courage to champion traditional marriage, knowing it will unleash invective from alleged liberals”.

So: the plucky commentator is braving the wrath of the liberal bullies by speaking out. It’s a clever ploy, because of course to challenge it is to risk sounding like a bully. It is playing the Victim card – and whenever someone does that, a Persecutor is being invoked, real or imaginary. She is appealing for a Rescuer (the reader) to come in on a white charger and save the day, to protect her and save her, and, in particular, the poor helpless children she is fighting to protect from homosexuals. Failing that, her martyrdom is certain – a person of faith tied to the stake by the forces of godless liberalism. “I told you so” being her last words, as the satanic flames lick at her feet, and the fabric of society, the old moral order, disintegrates.
In response, I could, if I wished, compete on the Victim stakes, list the experiences I’ve had as a gay man to trump her. It’s an argument I am loath to employ, because it’s an emotionally manipulative one. And yet, for so many gay people, bullying has been a visceral, inescapable reality, especially when growing up. Being bullied at school, being criminalised, having to keep one’s early relationship needs secret, being deemed to be a sinner, being classed as psychologically disordered, being discriminated against at work, being distorted and/or invisible in the media, all leave their marks on a soul. It’s hard to disidentify from the Victim role, it’s hard to argue rationally when there has been so much hurt.
It is possible, however, to identify the forces that conspired to create that awful state of affairs, for so many Irish gay people. Largely, it was an intellectually lazy, instinctively reactionary consensus in Irish life, overly influenced by celibate clergy. There was a fear of difference, a suspicion bordering on hatred of sexual expression, a shocking ignorance of human diversity, and a punitive scapegoating of a minority. At its heart was a traditional Christian orthodoxy which was embedded in the Irish political system: a theocracy.
Challenging that has not been easy over the past few decades - in the main, it was achieved by the many thousands of ordinary gay people who came out and spoke out about their lives and experiences to their family and friends and in their workplace, and in the media and courts, shattering myths and prejudices simply by living our lives publicly, arguing our case rationally, and refusing to buy into the shame we were supposed to feel. To this end, we have been successful to a degree I could not have imagined when I left Ireland in 1993, when I was still a criminal in the eyes of the law. In 2008, a handsome 58% of Irish people believe that gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to marry in a registry office, and a stunning 84% are in favour of some sort of civil partnership. The argument for equality has been won, except in the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party, which, sadly, is where it currently matters.
The ignorant moral “majority” of old, now finding itself in the minority, has had to adapt its debating techniques to cope with this change: hence the “think-tanks” like the Iona Institute. Borrowing from the language of the neo-cons in America, they are busy creating this new enemy, the “liberal elite”, and adapting it to Irish cultural and political life.
But I cannot stomach their wrapping themselves in the flag of victimhood, crying “bully!”. It is disingenuous and dishonest. Most especially, when it comes to the issue of gay marriage.
I can appreciate an argument that calls for caution when old barriers against sexual permissiveness fall in the name of progress. When prostitution is legalized, or when cruising is legalised in a public park after dark (as it was in Amsterdam earlier this year), for example, there are all sorts of sensible reasons and arguments that can be made to challenge such “liberal” advances. There are compelling reasons to argue against untrammelled sexual expression; not the least of which is the spread of sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS. My position on these sorts of issues is not directly related to my sexual orientation – charges of homophobia are redundant, irrelevant. It is not homophobic, for example, to raise the issue of reportedly widespread unsafe sex practices in gay saunas. The same sort of argument is required when discussing the decriminalization of drugs, including alcohol and tobacco; not to mention the vexed question of abortion. At the crux of these debates is how much freedom a state should give to its citizens to do things that are of questionable value, when there is a question of balancing different rights.
At the core of the argument in her article, however, lies unmistakable prejudice. Gay marriage, writes O’Brien, would result in the situation “where some children will have the right to be reared by a mother and father, where possible, taken away.” She argues that “sweeping changes” in our understanding of marriage would do away with the principle that child custody, in the event of separation or divorce, is decided on a case-by-case basis. That, if gay marriage were introduced, the courts would have to disregard the gender of the person or persons applying for custody of a child or children, and decide on the merits of each case, bearing in mind the best interests of the child or children. Should this happen, she argues, a child could find him or herself brought up by same-sex parents and be denied contact with their biological parent(s).
This is already the case, when in April the High Court decided that a man who had donated his sperm on condition he relinquish his right to be a father could not change his mind afterwards. The child was left in the custody of his “de facto” family, two lesbian women. It was a specific judgment addressing the unique circumstances of that child’s situation, and was made in the absence of any legal recognition of the lesbians’ relationship.
However, even if the women were married, the father’s right to sue for custody and/or access would not disappear; the same arguments would apply. And the reason is that, when it comes to the custody of children or to adoption, parents of whatever orientation, biological or not, do not have absolute rights; the state will intervene, and rightly so, when a child is suffering at the hands of his or her parents, and make what are often difficult decisions. In custody cases, there are rarely only winners. Gay marriage will ensure that the losers in such cases do not lose because of blind prejudice, as has so often been in the case in the past, but because they have failed to prove that their presence in the child’s life is in the child’s best interest. To argue that this should be the case is not bullying, it is not victimizing children, it is not unleashing some dark chaotic liberal force that demands that children should suffer because of political correctness gone mad.
It is common sense. It is fair. It is supported by a vast body of scientific research on children raised with same-sex parents. And it goes some way to address the absurdity that just because heterosexuals have unsafe sex it automatically makes them suitable parents. Let the courts decide what’s best for children, without prejudice.
Bullying? Breda O’Brien does not know the meaning of the word.

www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/0705/1215184142493.html
www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/0418/1208468759270.html
www.ionainstitute.ie/personnel_patrons.php
www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/mar/08031409.html