Sir, - I read with sadness but with little surprise the article on the Amsterdam Treaty (May 20th) by Mr Rory O'Hanlon, a retired judge. With regard to the case concerning homosexuality which I took through the Irish courts to the European Court of Human Rights, Mr O'Hanlon states that I challenged the constitutionality "of the law which made it a crime for males to engage in a form of homosexual activity known as buggery". There is no form of sexual practice occurring between males which is not also possible and practised by heterosexual couples. Many gay couples do not indulge in anal intercourse and on the other hand many married couples do.
Mr O'Hanlon then goes on to say that I lost before Mr Justice McWilliam in the High Court and then lost again in the Supreme Court. That is, of course, quite true. However, it is by no means the full story. In his judgment, McWilliam J. accepted all the evidence presented by my legal team in the matter, so that in some sense the bulk of his judgment was a complete vindication of the case for gay rights i.e. that gay people constituted a surprisingly numerous segment of the population in Ireland, that they were not less intelligent, emotionally stunted, a threat to children, a risk to health etc., although at the very end of his judgment he suddenly changed tack and found against me on technical grounds. Similarly, although in the Supreme Court the Chief Justice found against me, there were two very important dissenting judgments, and many people feel that the Chief Justice's decision is a classic example of how even a distinguished jurist can misdirect himself in law.
Mr Justice Henchy for example pointed out quite clearly that in his opinion there was no question that I had won a walk-over because of what he described as the "signal failure" of the government side to enter any evidence at all. Moreover, despite the fact that Mr O'Hanlon referred to evidence given both in the High Court and in the Supreme Court, it is a fact, and one of which I am surprised Mr O'Hanlon is unaware in view of his legal background, that no additional evidence can be adduced in the Supreme Court at all. All that happens is that there is legal argument on the evidence already presented in the High Court. Mr O'Hanlon is therefore wrong to speak of a link "established by the evidence between this life style and a number of sexually transmitted diseases, some potentially fatal . . . . before the scourge of Aids on a world wide basis as emerged as the most dramatic confirmation that the findings of the Irish court were well founded" although the Chief Justice did if I recall correctly permit himself some ill advised remarks on this score. He is therefore completely misinformed. Had any such evidence been entered by the government side it would have been immediately and effectively challenged by the introduction of expert evidence to demonstrate what still remains the fact i.e. that in ninety per cent of the cases world wide the mechanism of transmission for the human immuno-deficiency virus is not homosexual behaviour but is overwhelmingly the practice of heterosexual relations, with a smaller section deriving from intravenous drug use. I assume that even Mr O'Hanlon has sufficient common sense not to use this fact as the start of a campaign to criminalise heterosexual behaviour on a global basis.
Mr O'Hanlon's Christianity seems to be of a particularly flexible variety as he permits himself the markedly uncharitable comment that homosexuality is "a life style which is as harmful as drug addiction to those who practise it and to society as a whole". Indeed I am not sure that making this insulting and vexatious comment Mr O'Hanlon is not sailing perilously close to the provisions of the Incitement to Hatred Act.
Mr O'Hanlon is also incorrect when he says that the amendment was pushed through the Dail with no real debate. In fact it went through both houses in debates that were generally well informed and positive although they did not of course coincide with Mr O'Hanlon's own idiosyncratic views. Nor is he correct when he states that at that time polls showed a clear majority of the Irish people to be opposed to the humane reform of the law. I recommend him in this matter to read the evidence supplied in the High Court by Fr Micheal McGreil and also to Fr McGreil's subsequent work in the area. In his attitude to Supreme Court judgments, Mr O'Hanlon displays a strong tendency to be an a la carte jurist, accepting only those judgments with which he personally agrees.
I find it sad that persons such as Mr O'Hanlon and your other contributor Anthony Coughlan have sought to use gay people and their human rights as ping-pong balls in what should be an important and balanced debate. I am also profoundly shocked that in the light of his vaunted "pro-life" activities Mr O'Hanlon chose in his article to ignore altogether the question of military neutrality and the arms trade and to concentrate on attacking the human rights of a vulnerable minority. Perhaps after all I am just a little more "pro life" at the end of the day than Mr O'Hanlon, despite his protestations. - Yours, etc., Senator David Norris,
Seanad Eireann, Baile Atha Cliath, 2.