Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I also watched Panti's speech at the Abbey Theatre and it is very powerful. One would think RTE had an obligation to facilitate free and open debate but in this instance, it failed miserably. Some people now are more offended by the word "homophobia" than they are by homophobia itself. This is censorship. In a press release last week, the Minister stated that homophobia "is too loaded a term to be used to categorise those who hold contrary views on what is a matter for legitimate public debate". I will point out that it is not for heterosexuals to define what is homophobia. We do not have the right to tell gay people what does or does not constitute homophobia. This was summed up eloquently by Panti Bliss in her Abbey Theatre speech last weekend, when she stated:

So now Irish gay people find ourselves in a ludicrous situation where not only are we not allowed to say publicly what we feel oppressed by, we are not even allowed to think it because our definition has been disallowed by our betters. ... [T]he word "homophobia" is no longer available to gay people. Which is a spectacular and neat Orwellian trick because now it turns out that gay people are not the victims of homophobia - homophobes are.

Does the Minister think these contrary views, as he calls them, have no impact? Does he believe there is no link between discriminatory comments about gay people and physical attacks on gay people? From where does the Minister think those who commit physical acts of violence against gay people get their ideas? To quote Breda O'Brien, "equality must take second place to the common good". Does the Minister honestly think these words have no impact on gay people?

See this speech in context