Madam, - John Waters's intemperate column of November 8th is part of a worrying trend in Irish society that seeks to mimic the American experience by undermining respect for liberal values. Indeed the object of the campaign both here and in America, where it has been regrettably very successful, seems to make the whole concept of liberalism a political liability to such an extent that decent people are actually afraid of being described as "liberal". Let me say that I am an unrepentant, unashamed liberal and I think it is greatly to be regretted that the adoption of liberal and humane values should be so derided.
Mr Water's article employs highly emotional language. The liberal agenda, for example, "shrieks to high Heaven". His principal grouse seems to be that his own pet liberal issue - the rights of unmarried fathers to have facilities for proper relationships with their children - is not given the attention he desires. This is an issue on which I have campaigned in the past and consistently raised in the Senate. But it would be unrealistic to expect me to do so to the exclusion of all other such questions. Mr Waters, however, is not so bashful. He instances his own grievance and no one can blame him for that. However, he follows this by saying: "That is the crisis. There is no other." In other words everyone else must stand aside in order to give Mr Waters the Lebensraum to pursue his single-issue agenda and if they do not do so at once they are accused of "fanaticism". He works himself up to such a pitch that he can assert that "liberalism" is "perhaps the most fanatical religion ever seen".
Towards the end of his piece Mr Waters appears to rejoice in what he sees as the rebuff given to liberalism by the recent American election. He poses the situation of a young American man who, returning from Iraq or Afghanistan having "risked his life for the free world" is then "thrown in jail for non payment of child support" and then in a theatrical coup de grace "finds himself required to vote on gay marriage".
The situation, although hypothetical, is possible. But Mr Waters apparently has failed to ask himself who placed the issue of gay marriage on the ballot paper in 11 states in the first place. It was, of course, the Republican Party, inspired by its machiavellian strategist Karl Rove, and had nothing to do with anything liberal. It was done quite deliberately as a pre-emptive strike to frighten the Bible-thumpers into the voting booths by summoning up all their prejudices. And didn't it work a treat?
It is dirty tricks like this and the "tendentious interpretations" placed on such actions by people like Mr Waters that convince people like myself that our old fashioned liberal ideas are all the more necessary in this cynical and deeply divided world. - Yours, etc.,
Senator DAVID NORRIS, Seanad Éireann, Dublin 2.