I’m getting emails, phonecalls, texts and IM’s about Ganley – it is amusing and agitating many it seems. This joins the matter of the farce that is the Equality Authority board and resulting machinations in the LGBT sector as items keeping people talking when not concentrating on economic meltdown and mismanagement.

World by Storm indeed enjoyed running over the Roscommon speech and comments this morning on Cedar Lounge.

Patsy McGarry wrote more in the Irish Times today on Ganley’s thoughts on faith and public life. Carl O’Brien writes that Ganley is in court today trying to get the latest edition of Village Magazine banned. This is after yesterday losing his attempt to get that Primetime programme censured. Jamie Smyth runs his eye over the problems that have beset the registration of Libertas as an EU wide political party.

Oh the poor diddums,  I almost got dizzy from reading all the stories in todays Irish Times.  But there’s more – AUDIO of his speech – handy in case he denies ever saying something – which he’s been known to do!

If people wonder why it’s important to keep an eye to the latest pronouncements from Roscommon well I’ll let one of my readers, AL (one of the many who NEEDS to start blogging!) tell you why it’s important we know what he’s up to.

I see that you are drawing attention on your blog to the Declan Ganley/catholic right love fest that took place in Roscommon recently. This is an important story that needs to be covered widely. Ganley and Libertas have been trying to cynically mislead people into thinking that they are a broad coalition made up of both right and left and whose only concern was the so-called democratic deficit supposedly at the heart of The Lisbon Treaty. Ganley’s remarks at this far right conference and indeed similar comments that have not been as widely reported show that there is a far more sinister agenda at play here. Libertas, along with the usual suspects in Coir/Youth Defence, Human Life International, and The Vatican etc. see the EU as a liberal, anti-religious body determined to bring in progressive social legislation and this is anathema to them. Of course in the case of Ganley you can also throw an extreme neo-con outlook on economic issues into his toxic mix of opposition to the EU.

Ganley’s anti-gay stance needs to be exposed as much as possible. As well as believing that being gay is a choice and a harmful one at that and stressing his opposition to equal marriage to his ideological soul-mates in Roscommon, Ganley has also taken to warning people about the danger the European Court of Justice poses to religious run schools. Apparently Ganley is none too pleased that the right of these schools (unfortunately the vast majority of schools here in Ireland) to fire teachers based on their sexuality or anything else that does not conform to their “ethos” may be construed as discrimination and struck down by the Court. This is the same Court that finally forced Ireland to stop treating gay people as criminals (presumably Ganley would also have been opposed to this example of “meddling” from Europe) and it would be great if they also forced our government to drop the outragious exemption granted to religious bodies in the 1998 Employment Equality Act.

Link to Ganley interview where he refers to religious schools – http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/831/full

Finally, in Ganley’s Hot Press interview that you quoted from on your blog recently, Ganley had the nerve to talk about the wonderful gay people working for Libertas. I agree with you – It does indeed take a certain kind of person to overlook the above and work for such an individual. A bit like the Log Cabin Republicans in America really – a strange group of people who nobody takes seriously and who are widely ridiculed within the LGBT community.

Oh I’m sure we’ll have much more on this strange group of people – queers who work for Ganley and similar groups. Maybe someone can start a support group for them!