Sir,- Mr Rory O'Hanlon (July 3rd) claims that the negative judgment of the Supreme Court on David Norris's case was based on the evidence he himself presented in court. This is a highly paradoxical claim, and it is also untrue.
The factual situation is described by the Irish Council of Civil Liberties who point out that the Supreme Court majority "simply substituted their own conclusions, in the face of the plaintiff's arguments and evidence, given almost entirely by experts in sociology, theology and psychiatry, as to the personal and societal effects of the challenged laws". I myself offered evidence that Vatican II's teaching on liberty of conscience would weigh heavily in favour of the plaintiff's case. In the 18 years that have passed since then, defence of the human rights of gay people has become a prominent theme in Catholic teaching.
Moreover, I showed that Vatican judgments on the "objective immorality" of homosexual sex, masturbation, or contraceptive sex have been accompanied with pastoral qualifications. Paul VI spoke, in a letter to Cardinal Boyle of Washington, of objectively immoral actions as being "subjectively defensible". In the case of stable gay couples, for example, their situation might be accepted on the pastoral level as the best solution in the concrete circumstances of the couple's life.
Neither of these items of evidence were reflected in the judgments handed down by the High Court or the Supreme Court majority. The evidence given by an official spokesman for the Church of Ireland was also ignored. Instead "the Christian nature of the state" was taken to imply unambiguous support for the laws which were later found by the European Court to be in breach of human rights. Thus, the High Court and the Supreme Court managed to paint Christianity and the Catholic Church in very black colours, in flagrant contradiction to the evidence presented. - Yours, etc., Rev Joseph S. O'Leary, DD,
Tokyo, Japan.