Far-right American lobbyists funding the No campaign; some evidence for

This is just a quick post- which I’ll edit to update as appropriate- about the evidence for far-right American interest groups funding the No campaign in Ireland’s upcoming marriage referendum.

This has admittedly been sparked by a stupid internet fight: some guy googled “Iona Institute funding American” and came across this opinion piece by Breda O’Brien which bafflingly got published (I’ve already said my piece about her), which claims that “[Iona] has never received any American money and never had instant access to key politicians, but that instead I’m describing the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN), eyes will glaze over and the salivating interest will disappear”.

So, I’ve decided to make this to catalogue the evidence I’ve come across of American interest groups funding anti-gay marriage campaigns and promoting homophobia:

• The American lobby group National Organization [sic] for Marriage has solicited donations to affect our referendum by funding KeepMarriage.org.
• A piece from 2012 detailing “US evangelical Christians accused of promoting homophobia in Africa”

Iona Institute’s Breda O’Brien fails word association test.

Iona Institute mouthpiece Breda O’Brien has been barred from appearing on national television due to popular demand after her basic word skills were called into question.

O’Brien’s challenged literacy came to the fore during a discussion last month about same-sex marriage. The same-sex marriage issue is just one feather in the Iona Institute’s hat of concerns, albeit a very predominate feather on an otherwise bare hat. It’s more like the yoke on a fez really. Same-sex marriage is the only concern of this organisation with a net worth of ~€300,000.

Ireland isn’t a “lawless utopia” due to Irish Water protests, Labour senator’s statement was just propaganda.

Lorraine Higgins’ comments claiming that the some of the backlash against Irish Water is giving our country an image as a “lawless utopia” is an example of blatant propaganda.

I say “some”, because Higgins isn’t referring to any of the peaceful protests against water charges. She’s playing up what Leo Varadkar calls the “sinister fringe” of Irish Water protesters. She’s focusing on incidents involving individuals and small groups, with no mention of lawful protests with turnouts in the thousands.

McGonigle makes stupid comment and receives internet bile

Computers are a lot like cars, in that they’re impersonal: they allow you to interact with people without realising that you’re interacting with actual people, and not amalgamations of metal and plastic. This is why road rage is a phenomenon, and pedestrian rage isn’t.

Computer rage can be a lot nastier and closer to the bone than road rage, but in some cases the root cause of this rage is obvious. For example, being a poor driver or less than fluent English speaker. Grammar is to using the internet as being able to accelerate is to driving: in that you’ll need to learn to effectively utilise both to avoid verbal abuse on a daily basis.

At the end of the day though, we can rest assured that the abuse we receive in the online world wouldn’t happen in the meat world, with its established rules of common decency and etiquette; reinforced by the omnipresent, always online content moderator that is the possibility of getting a shit kicking once you violate those boundaries.

Anyway, here’s an example of warranted internet bile (if it can ever be warranted), and how not to deal with it.

Ogham me, ogham my: Young protester revives ancient alphabet.

There have been numerous protests in Ireland as of late in response to the recent actions of Israel. People have been boycotting Israeli goods and taking to the streets in support of Palestine.

These protests are seen as legitimate by most people, but not by Sam O’Fitzgerald. In this exclusive interview with Irish News Bandwagon, Sam tells us why these non-ogham based protests are just varying shades of slacktivism.

The Beehive Industry

Well well well, the Irish news, as ever, has not failed to disappoint with yet another curious angle upon supposedly important news-a-like stories. Unfortunately for the Irish media the recent few weeks have actually been rather eventful, leaving Ireland struggling to find anything domestic which really competes with God’s newly acquire penchant for aeroplane disappearing acts (he still hasn’t quite gotten the reveal right), or the religious misgivings of his previous chosen people.

However RTÉ has pulled out one of its proudest creations last week on the front page of their news website: 15,000 new homes will be completed by the end of the year. That’s right Ireland’s remedial aid worker Enda Kenny has stated that he believes 15,000 peasant abodes will be cobbled together by the end of 2014.