Latest Coalition of Right Wing Nut-Jobs: RENEW

Another day, another bunch of crazies band together to spread their religious bile.This new group, called RENEW, describe their mission statement as:

The mission of RENEW is to defend the dignity of the human person and the institution of marriage.  We work to protect the dignity of the human person and seek to change attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that allow for the total disregard of moral values.

 We believe that the continuing commericalisation of human sexuality, the objectification of women and the lack of moral values is immensely damaging to society, therefore we aim to influence, educate and lobby the industries responsible and the government so as to counteract this.

However, their main aim seems to be to petition against the Civil Partnership Bill. WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!! They couldn’t possibly allow gays to have a handful of the rights that they have. Sean Brady must be delighted!

Their site lists their campaign issues as:

•  
  • The promotion and protection of marriage and family life
  • To influence government legislation which protects and supports family life
  • The teaching of sex education is primarily the role of the parent and must be taught in accordance with Catholic principles which always respects the child’s natural modesty
  • The protection of children against sexualisation by the media and the entertainment and commercial industries.
  • To end the commercialization of human sexuality and the objectification of women through the media, sex industries and on the internet
  • To lobby the government to strengthen the obscenity laws and to impose heavy sanctions for the breaking of those laws
  • The regulation of the media and advertising industry by an impartial body, independent of the industries concerned

Ah, ye olde “protection of marriage and family life” argument. Please people, some originality. It’s getting boring. Seriously. Come up with a new argument. Or maybe even some backing evidence for this bullshit. How does two men or two women getting married in anyway impinge on your monotonous lives which lack so much that you must spend them peddling hatred and promoting discrimination? Like how sad do you have to be?!

In their events section, they applaude their own launch with the following article:

RENEW, a new national advocacy and lobby group, launched in Buncrana last week has been hailed a “vision for modern Ireland.”  The organisation has been founded by Mary Doherty from Buncrana.
RENEW seeks to influence and renew modern day thinking in regard to human behaviour and to position itself as an authoritative voice on Christian moral values.
Guest speaker, the most Reverand Bishop of Derry Seamus Hegarty, said he “saluted Mary Doherty in bringing her vision to this stage.  I’m here because I am in agreement with a lot of her aspirations. I acknowledge Mary’s vision which she has been articulating for a very long time and doing so very convincingly. RENEW has produced a valuable piece of work for people who care about the future of young people.”

RENEW has made a series of recommendations that it would like to see pursued by Government to protect children and families against the commercialisation of human sexuality in modern day Ireland. They include:

• The greater encouragement of marriage by the Government by offering affordable homes, incentivised tax laws and affordable childcare;
• A stated policy position on the promotion of marriage and the family unit;
• A Government information campaign against the commercialization of human sexuality and the objectification of women and the sexualisation of children by the media and entertainment and commercial industries;

We are supporting Media Watch UK in pressing for a European agreement on programme standards in the area of multi-media broadcasting.
Speaking at the launch Mary Doherty said her vision for change will continue around the country with a county-by-county publicity and media campaign.  “I was delighted with the turnout at our launch and the reaction from the public since it.”

Here are the lovely people behind this:

Perhaps most worringly of all is the letter that they are sending to TD’s. The only place I could find this letter was on the blog of Maman Poulet, so she did the work on this one. The text of the letter is as follows:

 

Dear Deputy,

 

RENEW is calling for the scrapping of the Civil Partnership Bill for the following reasons:-

 

It’s unconstitutional because it’s against Article 41 of the Irish Constitution. Article 41 states that ” The State recognises the family as the natural, primary and fundamental unit of society, and a moral institution. The State guarantees to protect the family because it is the necessary basis of social order and indispensable to the welfare of the nation and the State.

 

Making laws that recognise same-sex unions is legislating for immoral, perverse and deviant behaviour.

 

This Bill contradicts right reason because it is not in accordance with the natural moral law.

 

Therefore this Bill is not legitimate since it fails to recognise the inalienable and imprescriptible right of every human being.

 

It is grossly unjust and immoral because it is so harmful to the common good.

 

It is a blatant attack on Marriage and Family Life.

 

The government and the opposition parties assured the people that the “guarantees” secured by the government ensured that there could be no undermining of the Constitutional protections for the family and human life.

 

We call on you as our public representative to see that this Bill is scrapped and show the people that they were right to trust the government to protect the family founded on Marriage since this was one of the issues many people voted NO too in Lisbon 1, then voted YES in Lisbon 2 because of the guarantees.

 

We are asking you to respond to us via email at info@renewcampaign.com and outline your position on the Civil Partnership Bill.

 

Yours Sincerely,

 Mary Doherty

What the FUCK like?! My only hope is that the TD’s recognise this as being one of the crazy letters and puts it to one side. However, the worrying this is that if they get enough of these letters, that they may sit up and take some notice… There are some TD’s that are getting a letter/visit a day in opposition to the Bill.

Therefore, the LGBTQ community need to get up off their asses and go visit their TD’s and outline their concerns. MaarriagEquality are running a campaign on this. To learn more, go to www.marriagequality.ie and get involved. We can wait around on this one, as the Bill will be discussed on the 3rd of December if my sources are correct….

Don’t wait around on this. The crazies are rallying the troops. We should be too.

RTE’s Battle of the Sexes

Ray D'Arcy and Miriam O'Callaghan, presenters of the programme

 

Having just watched this programme with the USI Equality Officer, it’s safe to say that we both have the rage. Billed by RTE as

“A groundbreaking two-part series exploring the state of the modern Irish man, the modern Irish woman and their relationship with one another. Both programmes are driven by a national survey conducted by RTE/RedC. Mná na hÉireann join Miriam O’Callaghan in the first programme to analyse their men: is the modern Irish male struggling for a role? How are they performing as parents, romantically, on the dating circuit? Is masculinity in crisis or are men still enjoying unequal power and privilege. While in the second programme, the Men of Ireland join Ray D’Arcy to have their say: asking whether women demand too much? The men speak frankly about sex and love and about whether it is time to let go the reins of power and try to create a society that is really equal,

the serious featured women making some seriously derogatory remarks about both men and women, and men making equally bad remarks about women.

The first indication of the type of programme that it was going to be came from the fact that underneath all the female panellists’ names, there was their occupation, but also their relationship status. This was not the case for the men, who only had to reveal their profession.

It all went downhill from there as the programme went on. A male interviewee stated that men simply

“don’t have time to be a hormonal gymnast”.

The premise of this line of thought was the question posed in the programme, which was

“Is the role of men being diminished?”

Women were described as being

“happy to let husbands be the head of the household”

and according to a survey conducted by the programme, we are apparently better at raising children then men. The programme seems to completely overlook the fact that over the past years, the gender roles have changed. However, this in no way implies that the role of men has been diminished. The implication of the programme was that all men are threatened by strong female figures, which I think is quite the stereotype.

Most of the women on the panel seemed to, in one way or another, define themselves in relation to men. One of the female panellists even went so far as to say that

“Women have lost the run of themselves, men used to be men and women were ladylike.”

Wtf like?! Whatever happened to feminism, or female empowerment?!

Allusions were made to the fact that women used to be

 “chained to the kitchen sink”,

but from what we saw from the case study that came next, not much has changed. One of the panellists was also referred to as a

“former Housewife of the Year”.

This for some reason brought Fr. Ted to mind. But anyway, I digress. Up until 1974, women were forced to retire from their jobs in the public sector, because obviously they were going to start immediately churning out babies instantly, yet if the example of a housewife in Co. Longford is anything to go by, gender roles and the role of the father has not changed.

She defined herself as a working mum, then went on to describe her day, which consisted of getting up at 7am, getting the kids ready for school and the husband’s breakfast, then she went to work, after which her

“real work”

began. This work involved picking up the kids from school, doing the shopping, cooking the dinner, washing the clothes, putting the kids to bed and making their lunches for the morning. It was apparent from this that her husband did little or nothing to help. She excused this fact by saying that he was a farmer, as if that should let him off being involved in family life at all. She reckoned that all this was ok, as

 “women are so much better than men at multitasking”.

One funny remark was made at one point, which was that back in the day, a man’s idea of foreplay was saying

“Brace yourself Bridget!”

This was followed by one of the women saying that a man would

“Walk over 10 naked women to get to a pint”.

 She seemed to think that men weren’t interested in sex anymore. Another panellist said that women use men for sex these days. It was also stated at some point that things need to change to

“accommodate women’s equality”.

Susan McKay (Director of the National Women’s Council) and Mary McAuliffe (Women’s Institute, UCD) were the only voices of reason on the panel. Susan McKay talked about the sex trade in Ireland, and about the fact that if a guy is with a load of girls, he is defined as a stud, but if a girl is with a load of guys, she is called a slag. Mary McAuliffe stated that gender roles have nearly changed and that that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and that men and women need to get over the whole issue of the battle of the sexes.

When the male panellists were brought in to give their opinions on the previous hours discussions, one guy tried to be all funny, but ended up coming across as a complete chauvinist.  He said that he would have preferred to have waited for the swimsuit round, and even went so far as to say

“Listen up ladies, I’m about to speak”.

The programme is an absolute farce, and I’m almost scared to see what is going to be said next week….

Civil Partnership Debate Coming Before the Dail, 1st Week in December

Just a quick note to let you all know that the debate on the Civil Partnership Bill will come before the Dail during the first week in December, so please to be on alert so we can get as many people to the NOISE flash demo as possible.

 

 Keep an eye on the LGBT NOISE website (www.lgbtnoise.ie)

 Join their mailing list, by sending an email with join in the subject line to mailinglist-subscribe@lgbtnoise.ie

 Join the Facebook page too:

 http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?v=app_2347471856&ref=profile&id=719370948#/group.php?gid=20429211296&ref=ts

 and follow them on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/lgbtNOISE

Hope to see you all there!

As Love Would Have It

A new documentary about Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan.

 

These women are my absolute heroes!!

 

Jedward

LOVE IT:

Seriously, how can people like these boys?!

NOISE Flash Demo

Just got this from NOISE:

 

Hi All,
The Civil Partnership Bill is due for discussion very soon in the Dáil. The schedule of the Dail is released every Monday ? as soon as we know the day of discussion of CP we will spread the word to you. This is a chance to stand-up and to tell our elected representatives that the Civil Partnership Bill is an inherently discriminatory piece of legislation and that the choice of civil marriage for all citizens represents full equality for Irelands LGBT community.
Demonstrating against this bill is about showing our elected representatives that Ireland’s LGBT community should not be forced to participate in it’s own discrimination by accepting, out of necessity, the measures contained within it. Joining NOISE in protest against the Civil Partnership Bill does not undermine any progress that this bill might represent for some members of our community who will avail of the limited rights within the bill to regularise their legal affairs. We need to continuously remind the Government that they have not done enough until they have actually granted us full equality. As equal citizens, we should have equal access to the various institutions of the state including the civil institution of marriage.
Noise will be organising a ‘flash Demo’ at short notice. This demo will not be like other NOISE rallies. It is an opportunity for the lgbt community to come together quickly to make our feelings known directly- by chanting and through our visibility – to our elected representatives. NOISE will be inviting the TDs and Senators of the Dáil to mix with the demo to better undertand why Civil Partnership is not good enough for our community or for our children.

DEMAND EQUAL RIGHTS
DEMAND CIVIL MARRIAGE
 
In the coming days, keep tuned in to lgbtNOISE.ie, NOISE Facebook, Bebo, Youtube, Twitter and JOIN US TO MAKE SOME NOISE!
Love & Noise,
The Noise Team

 

Keep an eye out guys, this one is gonna be important.

 

www.lgbtnoise.ie

 

Next NOISE Rally

 

Keep an eye on:

http://lgbtnoise.ie/

http://www.facebook.com/UsiEqualityCampaign?v=photos&ref=ts#/group.php?gid=20429211296&ref=ts

 

Pink Training 2009

So, it’s finally around the corner, my child, the thing I have been working on for almost 4 months.

I’m both excited and terrified about the weekend, but will blog properly about all that soon, VERY busy at the min as I’m sure you can imagine.

For now, here is the blurb, the ad and the Facebook

Pink Training is a three day event aimed at LGBT students from all over Ireland. The weekend consists of talks, workshops, guest speakers, presentations and safe spaces, as well as a fantastic opportunity to meet other LGBT students.

This year’s key note speakers are Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan. They have been together 27 years, and are taking the Irish government to the Supreme Court soon over their refusal to recognise their Canadian marriage.

Other confirmed attendees are: Tonie Walsh (Irish Queer Archives), Ailbhe Smith (Chair of the National Lesbian and Gay Federation), Lisa Connell (Co-founder of LGBT NOISE, current head of EQUALS), Will St. Ledger (EQUALS), Anna McCarthy (NOISE), Ross Higgins, Moninne Griffith (MarraigEquality), Cat McIlroy (TENI -Transgendered Equality Network of Ireland), Gillian Brien and Orla Egan (BeLonG To) and Brian Sheehan (GLEN-Gay and Lesbian Equality Network) .

The workshops include among many others; Queer Theory, How To Enact Social Change, Sexual Health, Sexual Empowerment, Coming Out and Trans* 101 among many others. There will also be a stereotypes workshop covering the issues of Biphobia, Transphobia, heterophobia and homophobia.

The talks vary from Bisexuality Awareness, History of Pride and Lesbian Visibility, to LGBT Mental Health, LGBT Drugs and Alcohol awareness etc.

There will also be “Safe Spaces” over the weekend for all sexualities, Lesbian, Gay Men’s, Bisexual and Trans.

This year, we are also have several modules aimed specifically at our straight delegates, such as LGBT 101, an introductory module to the idea of LGB and T if you will, and also one on how to support a friend coming out.

Keynote Speakers for 2009: Katherine Zappone & Ann Louise Gilligan

The forms have been sent out, so get in touch with your Student’s Union or LGBT Society if you want to go.

€65 for students in USI affiliate colleges, €130 for non-affiliates.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=209263337208#/event.php?eid=158490262237&ref=ts

Watch it.

Just do. Trust me.

 

The woman at my polling place asked me do I believe in equality for gay and lesbian people. I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her: what do you think I fought for in Omaha Beach?

Really moving video.

My Versheen

I was doing Class Rep Training in UCC yesterday, and one of my friends there showed my this video. It had us crying with laughter, and I can’t figure out why I find it quite so funny, but there ya go!