It’s a Sunday in August and the Sindo is rolling out it’s usual bigoted claptrap trying to be salacious drivel!

Jim Cusack – the security correspondent with the Irish Independent/Sunday Independent might be seen to start the engine of a witchhunt against gay Gardai in this mornings lead story on the numbers of gay Gardai coming out in recent years. The first paragraph includes mention of a senior Garda official seen leaving the George in “tight black leather pants”. He gets to use the terms ‘pink circle’ and publish sad stories of closeted gays from the security correspondent’s bible – the Garda Review, and Jim also tells us that there are a number of out gay gardai in Dublin. And this is all news.

There is also reference to ‘garda hindquarters’- the new term of disaffection for Garda HQ in the Phoenix Park. Oh how droll, I’m only reading the online version I wonder if some sub has included a picture of a behind in a pair of chaps for illustration in the print version.

And we are reading all of this on a Sunday morning why? Because Jim Cusack has nowt else to write about, or he thinks he’s writing for the Sunday World in the early 1990’s. The headline says that a Garda’s visit to the George (off duty!) shows a ‘new face to the force’. Eh Jim – gardai have been visiting the George off duty for years? And lots of other gay venues also. I’m not saying that it is or has been easy to be gay and be a member of An Garda Siochana but there are more than a few people thinking that it won’t get any easier if Jim and his ilk decide to do queer copper watch on Sth. Great Georges Street on a Saturday Night. (I wonder what Jim would have said about the Garda Band, the Assistant Commissioner and Gloria on the same stage in the NCH in June. Actually the Assistant Commissioner made a great speech including telling the audience that in any time of future marital strife, he could tell his wife of the offer he’d had at the NCH from Panti)

It seems to shock Jim (and he hopes will shock others) that the Gardai is becoming like any other workforce in the country with lesbians members going abroad for marriages, and another lesbian reporting unwanted harassment from a male colleague. (As the Gardai are not covered by employment protection legislation she has limited places to turn to for support – there’s a story for you Jim but possibly your nose is so far up the backside of your sources and Garda management like many of your security correspondent colleagues a real story is something of an enigma for you).