It's time to be straight about gays

I FIRST met a Protestant when I was 12. My family had moved that year to a town where there were a number of them. There were rumoured to be a few in my hometown, as well, down in the “deep south”, but nobody my age.

                                                                           Leo Varadkar

I still remember the name of that first Protestant. He was handy at football; he moved with a certain grace that was beyond me.

There was nothing extraordinary about him — he wasn’t that good — but his name and appearance have stuck with me into middle age. The first few times I was in his company, I couldn’t help staring at him. Would he betray his rogue origins? Would he, at some point, burst into tears, because he was beyond redemption, doomed outside the one, true Church? What would it be like for him, out there in the ether, while I was lying up in the hereafter?

Pretty soon, my curiosity morphed into sympathy, and pretty soon after that I forgot that he was different. We weren’t friends and I didn’t encounter him beyond the point where children disperse into their own groups.

But anytime I saw him around the town, or played football with him, I couldn’t help remembering that he had been my first Protestant.

I met my first gay person when I was 19. It was in New York, in a house in Queens, full of Paddies and soaked in booze. Ireland on tour in the 1980s.

Charlie was from Meath, a little camp guy with spiky hair. He was very funny, except when he was drunk, and then he often descended into sadness. One night, when I came home from work, he was drinking in the kitchen and told me that he had an awful time growing up. I felt sorry for Charlie, but found it difficult to take him seriously.

I had no idea what he had been talking about, because I didn’t know anybody who was really gay. Sure, there were one or two fellas in school who were described as “poofters”, because they displayed feminine traits, but nobody believed that they got off with other boys. And then there were the girls who had no interest in making themselves attractive. Dykes.

That’s the kind of country in which I grew up. It was intolerant of diversity, not as enthralled to the Church as previous generations, but enough to contaminate the minds of the children. Minds filled with muck about how those outside the one true Church were to be pitied rather than hated, and how those of a minority sexual orientation had been corrupted, were now deviants, and, consequently, were doomed. But, thankfully, like the snakes, they have largely been banished from the sacred isle.

Society as a whole, or at least most of it, bought into that warped narrative. In his book, Occasions of Sin, Sex and Society in Modern Ireland, Diarmuid Ferriter referenced the reporting of Nell McCafferty on a district court case, in September 1975, in which two men were brought to trial after a sexual encounter in a public toilet.

“What was illuminating was the manner in which the men were ‘pathologised, represented as immature, recommended for medical treatment and publicly humiliated’,” Ferriter wrote. “A priest referred one of the defendants to a psychiatrist; the other was deemed to be suffering from depression. They were bound to keep the peace for a year, the judge commenting, ‘it’s a completely unnatural performance’.”

When that’s the start you get, it takes a while for the spell to wear off. But, to the credit of this country and its citizens, the spell has lifted at an accelerating rate in recent decades. Intolerance of diversity has been driven underground.

Religious bigotry has, to a major extent in the Republic, disappeared. The Catholic Church has, to some extent, moved with the times. I don’t think that children today have the same hang-ups that most of my generation had, even though the Church still maintains its grip on primary-school education.

The influx of immigrants over the last 15 years has opened up the country in a way that never would have been dreamed possible a generation ago. Some things do persist, though.

Last Sunday, Health Minister Leo Varadkar, who is regarded as extremely able, told a radio audience that he is not an equal citizen in his own country. This is not somebody from an ostensibly marginalised community. He is one of the main lawmakers in the State. Yet, he does not enjoy the right to cement a loving union in marriage, simply because he is gay.

On Wednesday, the Government published the wording for the forthcoming referendum on same-sex marriage, and got cracking on another bill, on adoption rights. As with other referendums, the Government is playing catch-up already, and the dangers of it failing are very real.

Some people in the country disagree with the proposal, and that’s their prerogative. However, the basis on which the main plank of the no campaign is being run harks back to a time when the Catholic Church controlled the State. Most of those in the no campaign ride shotgun for the Church. I believe their objection is based on their religious beliefs.

Politically, they know that the Church, as a brand in social affairs, is pretty tarnished, despite the genuine contribution to social justice of some within the institution.

To run a campaign based on foisting religious beliefs onto a sceptical population would be as doomed as the Protestants of my youth. So, instead, they have resorted to fear and to concern for children. Their campaign is now largely built around scaremongering that a yes vote will have a negative impact on adopted children, denying them the right to a mother and to a father. This, despite the fact that one in four children in this State is currently raised outside the traditional nuclear family.

Such a campaign also fails to acknowledge that adoption dictates that the child not be raised by his or her biological parents.

All of the available evidence suggests that other matters, such as the quality of the relationship between parents, mental health, addiction, and socio-economics determine a child’s upbringing.

But, then, generating fear of the unknown, rather than producing evidence, is a well-worn tactic of those determined to resist the force of change. Back in the day, they wouldn’t have had that problem. The Church would have merely issued an edict and the population would have complied, in both letter and spirit.

Now, it is necessary to go down a different route, one that is laced with cynicism. If the changes of recent decades are to be properly acknowledged, the very least that the country deserves is an honest debate, based on genuinely held beliefs, rather than a dishonest tactic designed to spread fear, instead of persuade through argument.

Don’t hold your breath.

The no campaign is largely built around scaremongering.

The no campaign is scaremongering that a yes vote will impact adopted children

Michael Clifford

Photo Minute: London between 1951 and 1953

The Practice Of Being Happy Is the Best Workout; An open letter to a friend I know (part 5)

Of course the cure came with the sobering pill of over borrowed, over stretched and out of time. But life went on despite the hopelessness of the situation. In fact in relative to recent history, like seventy five years or less, these are still the best years of our lives despite this latest recession. 

A world perspective: Most people today were too young to have been drafted or even born to go to war in 1939, the daddy of all wars where over 60 million people died in trying to kill each other, which does not include the appendages of the children left without fathers or the young women without their partners. Mortgages were not seen to be that important as life itself did not seem to be a good bet that you would be around to have one. Still the world turned. 

To put into another perspective, the twin towers atrocity would have been a quiet day on the western front during that war. In fact the practise of being happy is all about perspective, and it is that view that will make or break you. 

Take common sense. It would be great if it was that common but it is not. What should be obvious if not simplicity itself rarely is unless we are ready to accept it. It is the barriers long practised that refuses to let us see the bigger picture for people are pre-occupied looking out rather than looking inwardly to see why the optics they are looking through are so blurred. 

For example, take your voice. Rarely does it sound as good to you when you listen to a recording of it as it may sound to another. When we talk naturally without guard, when that is played back in the same way, the instinct is to change the pitch and tone if not the very words itself because ‘that was not when you really meant to say’ even though that is what you said. 

Visual this scene: Two men are standing on the outermost edge of the cliffs of Moher in County Clare. One man looks down at the crashing waves and jagged rocks hundreds of feet below him and casually munches on a bar of chocolate, while the other man finds his heart rate has just gone up a notch or two and stands back wrenching and reeling while admonishing himself for being so stupid for standing at the edge of the cliff in the first place. Thats perspective at work. It is correcting the optics of that perspective a little and adjusting and tweaking the angles a bit more is when it can become more clearer. When we are ready to begin this workout is when we become our own best students which shows, if nothing else, that the student can only really learn when indeed they are ready.

Another scene: In the movie Unforgiven, one of the last scenes in it is where the character Will Munny (Clint Eastwood) has his shotgun trained on the morally skewed and already badly wounded sheriff, Little Bill Dagget (Gene Hackman). 

For Bill to be shot at all was more than a surprise for life seemed destined and promised to him, at least in his mind, which made his dying declaration to Munny this: “ I don’t deserve this…..to die like this…. I was building a house.” Munny replied: “Deserve has got nothing do with it.” 

Dagger then said bravely: “I’ll see you in hell William Munny”.  To which Munny dryly replied “Yeah” then cocked the shot gun and fired point blank at what was left of Dagger. This was again perspective at work: Dagget’s self belief of what was reality against Munny’s belief of what really is. Who was closer to the truth of what that means?

Barry Clifford

To be continued……….

Photo Minute: One second Of Time In The World Of 1913 In Original Colour (Press on photo for best results)

                                                                           Italy

                                                                         Ireland

                                                                         Sweden

                                                                             London

                                                                            France

Photo Minute: The Claddagh Galway in 1932

Since Antiquity, Money Men Have Been The Target Of Vitriol

                                             Quintus Antonius Balbus coin (c. 82-83 BC)

Today’s bankers are widely reviled. Bonus season – usually in February – gives rise to headlines such as: Fat cats getting fatter? Banker's bonus culture lives on as millionaires' club tops 2700 and It's a New Year for Goldman fat cats! The financial crisis has only increased the opprobrium.

It was ever thus: since antiquity moneymen have been the target of vitriol. Cato the Elder, writing in the second century BC, likened the act of lending money to that of murder and many literary works of the period portrayed the argentarii (bankers) as immoral. 

Yet the argentarii were a vital part of the Roman economy – just as they are today. Recent research reveals that the failure of Rome’s leaders to support the bankers had a devastating effect upon the economy just as it was experiencing a period of unprecedented growth.

Dr Philip Kay of Wolfson College Oxford has produced the most detailed analysis of Rome’s economic development in the late Republic period and this week speaks at the Legatum Institute about his work. Following the Second Punic War (218 – 201 BC) Rome experienced a period of exceptional economic growth. Military success saw the Romans collect indemnities from the Syrians, Macedonians, Carthaginians and Seleucids amongst others. In the 50 years after the war 1,050 tonnes of silver arrived in the city. The result was an expansion of the money supply; partly in the form of an increase of Denarii in circulation, from 68 million in 150 BC to 240 million in 50 BC, but also in the form of bank deposits, as banks and wealthy individuals extended credit to those who wanted it. This fuelled investment in urban infrastructure and agriculture, increasing demand and stimulating Mediterranean trade, which is estimated to have increased by over 500% between 249 and 50 BC.

Dr Kay estimates that the result was real GDP per capita growth of around 0.54% per annum between 150 and 50 BC, meaning that real GDP per capita grew by 72% taking the century as a whole. Such gains, like with today’s economic growth, were unevenly spread. The wealth of the elite grew by around 500%, while non-elite wealth grew by only 77%. However in 88 BC Mithradates VI invaded Asia Minor and seized many Roman investments in the region, causing shockwaves to ripple through the Roman economy.

The result is reminiscent of the global economy in the period between 2001 and 2007, where a period of sustained economic growth was followed by a credit crunch and recession. Kay himself draws this parallel. In recounting a passage of Cicero’s that outlines how the Roman ‘credit and this system of monies… is linked with, those Asian monies; the loss of one inevitably undermines the other and causes its collapse’ Kay suggests substituting ‘US sub-prime’ for ‘the Asian monies’ and ‘UK banking system’ for ‘the system of monies’.

Yet there is one important difference between the two episodes. Unlike their ancient counterparts policy-makers in 2008 (by and large) responded effectively to the crisis. Central banks cut interest rates, governments enacted fiscal stimuli and organisations such as the WTO and IMF helped ensure that international trade continued. As Professor Daniel Drezner of Tufts University puts it in his recent book: The System Worked. The support of banks and the financial system was vital in this. While the profits of the financial sector took a hit, and pay and employment decreased, many top executives continued to be paid six figure bonuses. The alternative, as Rome’s experience will show, could have been much worse.

In the same year that the crisis began the consuls Sulla and Pompeius Rufus passed a law that allowed partial repayment of debts and capped interest rates. Later Sulla confiscated the properties of prominent Roman citizens, an act which drove down property values, further undermining the balance sheets of the battered banks. There were similar actions taken in response to later crises which meant that credit remained tight for the remainder of the first century. Politically, the populist response of the Republican elite, in further damaging the Roman economy, hastened the demise of the Republic. Today’s leaders would be wise to heed the dangers of pandering to populist sentiment.

In AD 33 Tiberius took one of the few prudent steps to address an economic crisis when he stimulated lending through interest free loans, something that Kay describes as ‘functionally the same as what we would call quantitative easing’. Ironically today’s quantitative easing is held responsible for inflating asset values and generating wealth for financiers and the rich alike.

The Roman Republic holds a salutary lesson: during a crisis, support for the financial system is often necessary to stave off a full-blown depression. It is likely that during the next crisis we’ll find ourselves supporting the modern-day argentarii again. 

By Stephen Clarke (a Research Analyst at the Legatum Institute, London.)

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