Irish Minister for children appears to be mates with Peter Tatchell

[ShiveringCoyote]

Roderic O Gorman has a tweet from 2018 showing him looking very happy to be with PT at Dublin Pride. I am writing to my local TD as well as opposition Party members to question his support of such a person.
Any Irish person want to follow suit?

I had my reservations about his appointment before I saw this.

It's worrying me that very few people seem to be talking about it. And he hasn't made any attempt to respond to it.

He is confident that he is untouchable.

What is it about him that makes some people hold him in high regard and not focus on those views he expressed in the letter to the Guardian?

I think it's because the British media feel guilty about him.

When he first came to public attention, it was because he was standing as an MP in Bermondsey. It was one of those classic Labour Party sleight of hand things where they ship in middle class candidates to working class safe seats and ignore the local party's views (are they still doing this?). Tatchell was thoroughly resented by the local labour party because he was foreign (antipodean), very young (27) and they felt he knew nothing about Bermondsey's community (lots of dockers and people in the supply chain around that and the docks were closing). And Tatchell had been imposed on them. When it came out that he was gay as well, homophobia was added to the list and the local party wouldn't work for him.

He was subjected to a torrent of homophobic abuse from the local and national media. After having been a Labour safe seat forever, the liberal party candidate won, ironically it was Simon Hughes who was in the closet at that time and has spoken of his guilt at having won the seat in that way in the interim.

One of the obsessions with "wrong side of history" IMO is that a lot of people in our media were homophobic in the past and feel embarrassed and ashamed of it and are determined not to be on the wrong side again. As social attitudes regarding homosexuality shifted quite quickly and the Bermondsey by-election was reassessed, I think there was a bit of a feeling that this young man whose only crime was to be gay had been monstered by the media and with all their liberal credentials, no one had really stood up for him with any real enthusiasm. I think lots of people now in charge of the media, felt guilty about how their profession had treated him.

It's why they gave him such positive coverage in the years after. I really think they felt he was really hard done by and they don't want to be unjust to him again. So they draw a discreet veil over anything too dubious.

Thanks for that background @ScreamingBeans. Makes sense as to why it can be hard to find info.

The whole thing makes me uneasy.

I watched a clip of PT advising how to quash parents' objections to the model of Sex Ed he promotes (have parents collect their child for each lesson - the removal rate drops to zero. Presumably because parents have commitments such as work, which means they can't collect children each time)

Comments underneath about children needing protection from their bigoted parents.

And from what I can see, any attempt to raise concerns or even, in trendy parlance 'to educate yourself' is being met with shouts of bigotry, homophobia and far right leanings.

And not a peep from the man himself. I would have thought anyone taking their role seriously would have come out immediately to clarify their stance.

I found this interview on his website very upsetting. It’s about a neglected and abused child.

He used this child’s story of homosexuality, homelessness, pedophilia to push the narrative of reducing the age of consent.

So a 14yo having sex with a 11yo or a 12yo having sexual with a 9yo would be ok.

www.petertatchell.net/lgbt_rights/age_of_consent/im-14-im-gay-i-want-a-boyfriend/

“ The idea of a sliding-scale age of consent is something that OutRage! is promoting. In addition to supporting an age of consent of 14 for everyone (gay and straight), OutRage! argues that sex involving young people under 14 should not be prosecuted providing both partners consent and there is no more than three years difference in their ages.”

tatchells interview with the 14 year old boy showed a child who has been abused and groomed, he speaks of staying with a paedophile while homeless, prostituted out to men who tied him and raped him and yet Tatchell sees this child's views as worthy to support his argument to lower age of consent. Why did Tatchell not ensure this young boy had access to counselling and support rather than advocating that he needed a boyfriend… it shows how distorted Tatchells perception of normality is, his views are very dangerous. I wonder how that boy is now.

The Wikipedia page on Peter Tatchell is fairly clear and unbiased, surprisingly.

I remember him from the GLF at the beginning of the seventies; I thought he was one of those people who simply has to be campaigning for something, anything, all the time. I still think it; I just feel that his choice of causes to lay down his sanity for is sometimes misguided at the least, perverse at worst. Often he has done no good at all for the people he had wanted to help: the armed forces were really not all that grateful for his interventions, for instance. Doing things for other people's good without consulting them often doesn't quite work.

But there are quite a few things I would say he was right about, all the same. Rights for Aboriginal Australians. Opposition to the Iraq war. The dangers of climate change. Musical lyrics inciting hatred and violence against gays. Civil partnerships for opposite-sex people as an alternative to marriage.

It's just that he often seems to end up being right for all the wrong reasons, or starting out right and ending up in some mad cul-de-sac of his own making striving for something that is as daft as a brush, or dangerously blinkered as an outlook.

Speaking generally of course, many people in history have the alibi of being an “upstanding member of the community” for all their good work that makes it harder for people to believe evidence to the contrary.

O'Gorman has released a statement on fb, going to try attach it. He blames a far-right homophobic hate campaign and says Tatchell has clarified the remarks he made.

the liberal party candidate won, ironically it was Simon Hughes who was in the closet at that time and has spoken of his guilt at having won the seat in that way in the interim

Simon Hughes' behavior was despicable. The Lib Dems produced leaflets describing Hughes as "the straight choice"

I am glad that O'Gorman has clarified his position but find it irritating that he considers it homophobic that he was put under this scrutiny.

What had been clarified?PT has done a good job of honing in on the "may be impossible" part of that letter to said it was edited.Regardles he still said this:
"The positive nature if some child-adult sexual relationships is not confined to Western cultures,several of my friends gay and straight,male and female had sex with adults from the ages of 9 to 13.None feel they were abused."
"it is time society acknowledged the truth that not all sex involving children is unwanted, abusive and harmful.”

of not if

@NotBadConsidering

Speaking generally of course, many people in history have the alibi of being an “upstanding member of the community” for all their good work that makes it harder for people to believe evidence to the contrary.

Indeed, my worst abuser was a man of God, who found other like minded men (I still cant figure out how they found others like them, this is all way before the internet, just a puzzle that irks me often) and they had orgies and sex parties and just plain old standard abuse of the children in their orbit. But my God most of them were so bloody pious.

All upstanding, lovely men unless you were a child.

@classicspring

I am glad that O'Gorman has clarified his position but find it irritating that he considers it homophobic that he was put under this scrutiny.

Hi, this issue has brought me out of lurking. As a parent I am disgusted he chose to use this as an example of homophobia. NOTHING to do with homophobia and everything to do with safeguarding children. We have every right to be concerned.

I'm not really on sm much, but apparently he (RoG)has been accused of being a paedophile himself by some on twitter and fb.
What annoys me is that he paints everyone that queried the twitter pic and connection to PT with the far right homophobic brush, while there were plenty of concerned parents reasonably asking him to explain.
He says he was "surprised" to read of PT remarks in the 90s, (which he finds abhorrent) and is glad that he clarified and explained what had been alleged isn't his view... how can he say that when it's all there in black and white what PT said. Has PT actually clarified that any where? Not that I can find.
He's surprised rather than shocked or disgusted? It doesn't sit right with me.

And bananabix I am sorry to hear what happened to you
Predatory men have always managed to seek each other out.

there is reference to Tatchell on Renua Facebook page.

There are some very offensive things flying around fb about him. Genuine concerns are lost in all of that.

I'm not at all happy with the complete whitewash reply he gave, which to me is a completely separate issue to the trolls and bigots attacking him on FB - I haven't seen these, only what's on Twitter.

Bindel pointed out that Tatchel was buddies with Ian Dunne, one of the founders of PIE.

ROG makes it out like he didn't really know Tatchel, and anyway Tatchel explained to him that he didn't really say all that paedophile validation stuff, so it's all lovely, no need to worry at all 🙄

I can't read or see anything about this individual without thinking about JS.
The way the BBC positively fawns over him and promotes him at every opportunity is very worrying. It is depressingly familiar.
On a separate note, many years ago I volunteered with a charity for the homeless.They helped a lot of men who had been abused as children.
The vast majority had been abused by monks or priests.
The priest in my area who was found to be involved in similar behaviour was simply moved to a different parish. This was about 10 years ago.
I don't understand why there is not more outrage and publicity about this kind of behaviour. I can only assume it is because the people involved know too much.

Exactly ForeverFaithless you said it much better than I did.
He's completely minimised it.

The statement reminded me of Damian Barr''s response to those tweets that emerged. Damian Barr tried to divert blame to those that unearthed the tweets by labeling them as transphobic. Similarly, I felt that R O'G was diverting attention towards those that highlighted the issue, by labeling them homophobic. While, I feel he genuinely didn't know of PT''s views I found his response somewhat arrogant.

Louise Raw previously posted the letter that Tatchell wrote. He's saying that it was edited and not what he intended to say. It's at the very least minimising pedophile behaviour. If he believed he was misrepresented in what he wrote then why not ask for an apology /retraction.

It worr me that people like Tatchell are weasling their way into positions where they can influence gov policy.

It's becoming very difficult to know who really is looking out for the best interests of children.