From the comfort of my armchair in
Washington and no longer inhabiting the ivory towers of academia, I
had no idea what a shitstorm of debate, both in Ireland and in the
social sciences, I was wading into with my blog post commenting on
'Pantigate' and use of the word homophobia. A slightly edited version of it appeared as a column in last Friday's Irish Times.
It certainly provoked mixed responses:
@Cripipper
@IrishTimes
One of the finest contributions yet to this whole debate. Brilliantly
written and argued
— Mark Paul (@MarkPaulTimes) February
7, 2014
 |
| (my mum on the Irish Times comment section, using the pseudonym 'Labhaoise O'Donovan') |
I
don't think I persuaded many by my argument, as each side in the
debate is fairly entrenched, but I still feel that it is the one that
would have been accepted by the High Court (which was the legal
advice that RTÉ also received). In some respects by paying out, RTÉ
has saved the the gay rights activist community from a loss in Court
that would have affirmed that to be against gay marriage is not to be
homophobic per se.
But
in the past week, the debate has further broadened and has led me to
ask, why do we even use the term 'homophobia' at all?
