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Anti - Gay Mitchell Facebook page explodes overnight

Posted on Thursday, August 04, 2011 at 10:05 AM

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The Gay Mitchell campaign, Fine Gael's candidate for a run for the Irish presidency, ran into a serious snag this morning: a Facebook page opposing his run started in Ireland yesterday evening and has already attracted 715 members in its first 12 hours.

In these days of social media reflecting trends in the electorate, that's an awful lot of negative attention in a remarkably short time.

Claiming that he didn't want Gay Mitchell for president (or former Eurovision songbird Dana Rosemary Scallon, who is now rumored to be considering a run) one irate Facebook poster spoke of 'Dana with her twee 1960’s John Hind postcard Ireland with a priest behind every ditch. We are only getting away from that crowd in Rome who socially subjugated us for years and now these moral crusaders want to bring us back to the dark ages. 'Christian' and 'Democracy' do no belong in the same sentence!'

Other posters included links to article calling on Mitchell to fully explain why he wrote a letter seeking clemency for a double murderer.

Another poster wrote: 'Now that Senator David Norris was forced out of the Presidential race, this Gay Mitchell is a perfect example and definition of our Irish Government and how this country has always been run, run by crooked scum sucking ---------! This is what we have to look forward too, great!'

Looking for a quid pro quo for the recent public pillaring of David Norris, another poster wrote: 'Really a page should be set up demanding that all candidates dirty laundry get's the same going over as David Norris' has!'

But it was Micthell's close association with far right Christian evangelist leaders in the United States and his controversial decision to call for clemency for a man who murdered two people outside an abortion clinic in Florida that most incensed the posters to the new Facebook page.

It seems that the Pandoras box that Norris' opponents threw open may now have horrors to visit on every participant in the race.


26 comments

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Norris' remorseful philosophical exit from the political arena provided a role model for the bishops who covered up sexual abuse by religious. Covering up is cynical and inhumane, considering the vast harm done to victims first by the abuse but then afterward compounded by the power of the hierarchy to ignore it, obstruct justice, and let it fester. How many bishops will take their cues from Norris and withdraw from their roles in the Church--zero?
Actually, themurphia, I agree with you, and while I might be tempted to help rather than trashing his belongings, most likely I wouldn't help. Feeling sorry for someone is an irrational state of mind, however, so a person in that state does not always go with common sense or principle. That's why I call Norris' letter a human failing.
If my 'spouse' was convicted of raping a child/young person the only letter I'd have written would be to tell him where to find his belongings...in the trash...!
You think I have "cover"? The harassing emails that have tried to silence me for the past 1 & 1/2 years say otherwise. Nonetheless, I'll deal with the old thing, ijdgi at hotmail.
eiriamach:see below@02.08...!
Don't get dizzy, themurphia. No one is claiming that Norris wrote an OK letter. But if my spouse or ex-spouse were on trial for a serious crime, I can imagine being tempted to do something as foolish as Norris did. Even if the whole country were to chant, "We forgive you," he will not forgive himself, I'm sure, so he is gone from politics by reason of his too-human failing. The other guy, Mitchell, however, scares the expletive outa' me with his religious extremism, and that is an inhuman failing. Here in the good 'ole USA, ya either go to their tailgate picnics or ya run as fast and far away from them as possible. I run pretty fast for an old civil rights / civil liberties / feminist activist.
eiriamach:might have blown your cover there...OLD thing!
sweetie, you DID take a wrong turn on your way to that KKK site, didn't you? IC already has enough of your ilk. Try to find your way back ASAP, won't you? That a good sweetgirl!
What? Yes, 'hysterical': "If you are not part of the politically-correct, atheistic, liberal 'in crowd' in Irish society, you are treated as a leper" ---> liberals abhor political correctness as much as any other form of censorship, 'liberal' is not at all co-extensive with 'atheist,' and I know of no liberal who treats conservative demagogues, however hysterical they become, like lepers, though it might be tempting to do so when they start fulminating in the com boxes.
As far as I am aware Mitchell did not contact the trial or any other court to try and get his ex partner 'off the hook'...!
Geroid4:Precisely...!I am totally neutral as far as Mitchell is concerned..I have been consistent in my condemnation of the clergy and the conduct of the estwhile Senator...If Mitchell is culpable of some inappropriate intervention then let him face the consequences...I care not...So please keep your increasingly hysterical comments to yourself...!
errata, I mean't life without parole, Mea Culpa
I think, Holla, that you are trying to make an equivalence between the two cases where none exists. Mr Mitchell was making a legitimate plea for clemency for a convicted prisoner who is currently on death row whilst Mr Norris was making an unwise intervention(pre-sentence) on behalf of someone who was consequently found to be guilty of raping a minor. The convicted murderer, either way, execution or life without parole, will be paying judicially for the crime he committed. I, myself, prefer life with parole as the maximum sentence for murder because the death penalty reduces the state to the level of murder itself and it constitutes a barbaric form of retribution. There is no attempt on the part of Mr Mitchell to subvert the legal process.
Come on Sinn Fein, give us a candidate we can be proud of. If Joe Cahill was alive he would win easily.
The louder you protest the more obvious your investment is. And you're equivocating between two wrongs - dismissing one of them in the most repulsive manner. Of course statutory rape is wrong, but so is the murder of innocent people (in fact it's a greater crime under the law, which you claim to respect). You are determined to excuse Mitchell and hold Norris to account, which makes you the worst kind of partisan demagogue.
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