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In a May 2011 statement on his Presidential campaign website, Norris affirmed "I did not ever and would not approve of the finished article as it appeared". Norris asserts that he and Burke engaged in an "academic discussion about [[Classical Greece]] and sexual activity in a historical context; it was a hypothetical, intellectual conversation" and that the "presentation of references to sexuality in the article attributed to me were misleading in that they do not convey the context in which they were made".<ref name="Ask David: Magill article">{{cite web|url=http://www.norrisforpresident.ie/askdavid/magill-magazine-2002|title=Ask David: Statement on Magill Magazine profile|work=Norris for President website|accessdate=30 May 2011}}</ref> Norris also spoke about the ''Magill'' profile in an interview with Joe Jackson for the ''[[Sunday Independent]]'', in which he refutes the allegations, saying he responded in "horror", and that “it so completely misrepresents everything I said. In the interview I said I cannot understand how anyone would consider it appropriate to have sex with children".<ref name="The Joe Jackson interviews">{{cite web|url=http://joejacksonjournalist.com/2010/09/06/david-norris-the-joe-jackson-interview/|title=David Norris – The Joe Jackson interviews 2002 and 2011|accessdate=30 May 2011}}</ref>
In a May 2011 statement on his Presidential campaign website, Norris affirmed "I did not ever and would not approve of the finished article as it appeared". Norris asserts that he and Burke engaged in an "academic discussion about [[Classical Greece]] and sexual activity in a historical context; it was a hypothetical, intellectual conversation" and that the "presentation of references to sexuality in the article attributed to me were misleading in that they do not convey the context in which they were made".<ref name="Ask David: Magill article">{{cite web|url=http://www.norrisforpresident.ie/askdavid/magill-magazine-2002|title=Ask David: Statement on Magill Magazine profile|work=Norris for President website|accessdate=30 May 2011}}</ref> Norris also spoke about the ''Magill'' profile in an interview with Joe Jackson for the ''[[Sunday Independent]]'', in which he refutes the allegations, saying he responded in "horror", and that “it so completely misrepresents everything I said. In the interview I said I cannot understand how anyone would consider it appropriate to have sex with children".<ref name="The Joe Jackson interviews">{{cite web|url=http://joejacksonjournalist.com/2010/09/06/david-norris-the-joe-jackson-interview/|title=David Norris – The Joe Jackson interviews 2002 and 2011|accessdate=30 May 2011}}</ref>


=== Ezra Yizhak Controversy ===
On 30th July, 2011, a story broke in the Irish media that there had been a spate of resignations from Norris's senior campaign team <ref name="David Norris's presidential bid in doubt">{{cite web|url=http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0730/norrisd.html/|title=David Norris's presidential bid in doubt|accessdate=30 July 2011}}</ref>. There was speculation that the resignations arose due to Norris's relationship with [[Ezra Yizhak Nawi]], who had been convicted of indecently assaulting a minor in 1992 <ref name="Candidates meet for first presidential debate as Norris staff quit">{{cite web|url=http://www.thejournal.ie/candidates-meet-for-first-presidential-debate-amid-reports-of-norris-staff-quitting-189846-Jul2011/|title=Candidates meet for first presidential debate as Norris staff quit|accessdate=30 July 2011}}</ref> <ref name="JERUSALEM - ISRAELI POLICE REFUSED
TO ARREST A CONVICTED LEFT-WING">{{cite web|url=http://www.israpost.com/Community/articles/Pop_Show.php?articleID=28491&search=/|title=Jerusalem - Israeli police refused to arrest a convicted left wing|accessdate=30 July 2011}}</ref>. Some of Norris's parliamentary collegues, who had agreed to lend support to his Presidential nomination, have called for clarification on this issue <ref name="Candidates meet for first presidential debate as Norris staff quit">{{cite web|url=http://www.thejournal.ie/candidates-meet-for-first-presidential-debate-amid-reports-of-norris-staff-quitting-189846-Jul2011/|title=Candidates meet for first presidential debate as Norris staff quit|accessdate=30 July 2011}}</ref>.
==Awards==
==Awards==
* Council of Europe Travelling Scholarship
* Council of Europe Travelling Scholarship

Revision as of 17:01, 30 July 2011

For other people named David Norris, see David Norris (disambiguation).
David Norris
Senator
Assumed office
April 1987
ConstituencyUniversity of Dublin
Personal details
Born (1944-07-01) 1 July 1944 (age 80)
Leopoldville, Belgian Congo
NationalityIrish
Political partyIndependent
Alma materUniversity of Dublin
WebsiteOfficial website,
Campaign website

David Patrick Bernard Norris (born 1 July 1944) is an Irish civil rights campaigner, scholar, and independent politician who is currently seeking a nomination for the 2011 Irish presidential election.[1][2][3] He is a former university lecturer and a member of Seanad Éireann since 1987.[4] He is the founder of the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform and is a prominent member of the Church of Ireland. Norris was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in Ireland.[5]

Internationally, Norris is credited with having "managed, almost single-handedly, to overthrow the anti-homosexuality law which brought about the downfall of Oscar Wilde", a feat he achieved in 1988 after a fourteen year campaign.[6] He has also been credited with being "almost single-handedly responsible for rehabilitating James Joyce in once disapproving Irish eyes".[7]

Early and personal life

David Norris was born in Leopoldville in the Belgian Congo, where his father (John Norris) worked as chief engineer for Lever Brothers[8]. John Norris served in the British Armed Forces during World War I and World War II, he died while Norris was still a child. David Norris was then sent to Ireland to be cared for by his mother, Aida Fitzpatrick, and her extended family.[8]

Norris was in a long-term romantic relationship with Israel activist Ezra Nawi for a number of years.[9]

Education and academic career

Norris attended school at St. Andrew's College and The High School. He then entered Trinity College, Dublin to read for the degree of B.A. in English Literature and Language, where he was elected a Foundation Scholar in that subject before achieving a 1st Class Moderatorship and editing Icarus.[citation needed] He remained at Trinity as a lecturer and college tutor between 1968 and 1996.[citation needed] His love of Joyce is borne out in Dublin's annual Bloomsday celebrations.[10] He defended Ulysses when Roddy Doyle said it was "overlong, overrated and unmoving", calling Doyle a "foolish" and "moderate talent".[7] He is an Irish language speaker.

Campaigning and activism

Norris took the Attorney General to the High Court over the criminalisation of homosexual acts. His claim was based on the fact that the law infringed on his right to privacy and that since the introduction of the Constitution of Ireland the law passed under British rule became repugnant to the constitution. The High Court ruled against Norris. He appealed his case to the Supreme Court of Ireland.[11] In 1983, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the law by a three to two verdict.[11]

Having lost the Supreme Court case, Norris took his case to the European Court of Human Rights (See Norris v. Ireland). In 1988, the European Court ruled that the law criminalising same sex activities was contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, in particular Article 8 which protects the right to respect for private life. The law was held to infringe on the right of adults to engage in acts of their own choice.[12]

"The first and immediate thing about the European decision is the enlargement of dignity and freedom for gay people – but I think a decision like this enhances the dignity and freedom of all the people of Ireland because it pushes us towards a more tolerant and plural society". – Norris's reaction to the European ruling, 1988.[6]

This law was repealed in 1993.

Political career

Norris represents the University of Dublin constituency in the Seanad as an Independent. He was first elected to the Seanad in 1987, and has been re-elected at each election since.[13][14]

2011 presidential campaign

In March 2011, Norris announced his intention to run in the 2011 Irish presidential election.[15] He has topped multiple opinion polls as the person most Irish people would like to see as their next president (with the caveat that these polls have been taken before all candidates have declared).[3][1][16][17][18][19][20] Internal research by Fine Gael has also placed Norris ahead of all other potential candidates.[21] If elected, he would be Europe's first openly gay president.[22]

On 14 March 2011, he launched his campaign to secure a nomination.[23] On 9 May 2011, he crossed the first hurdle in seeking to run for the presidency, after he was nominated by Fingal County Council.[24] By the end of that month he had secured the support of half a dozen TDs.[25] Fine Gael ordered its councillors to block Norris' nomination.[26] In late May, controversial comments Norris allegedly made in 2002 were raised on a talk radio show. Norris called this an attempt to "sabotage" his campaign. He said the quotes had been taken out of context.[27] While it was claimed by some that his subsequent defence of his comments on pederasty in ancient Greece would seriously damage his chances of securing a nomination[28][29] Norris refuted this, saying he still expected to receive a nomination,[30] and the controversy has not affected his poll standings.[17] As of 22 July he has secured the support of 15 of the 20 members of the Oireachtas required for a nomination.[31]

Views

A resident of North Great George's Street in Dublin, he is a member of the Irish Georgian Society and is an active campaigner for the preservation of Georgian buildings in the Republic of Ireland.[8] Norris is also a well-known Joycean scholar, and plays a large part in Dublin's annual Bloomsday celebrations.[8]

On 11 March 2008, Norris called for the broadcast of the documentary Fairytale of Kathmandu (scheduled to be shown that evening on RTÉ) to be postponed. The film documented visits to Nepal by Irish poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh. It questioned whether he was sexually exploiting the boys or engaging in child sex tourism. Norris criticized that the film had been leaked beforehand and that Ó Searcaigh had been treated harshly by the media before its broadcast. He announced to the Seanad that the film should be checked for factuality, because he claimed that "public money" had been spent on it. The issue was conveyed to Deputy John Cregan, the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.[32]

On 21 May 2010, The Belfast Telegraph reported that Norris said the Republic should join the Commonwealth. It quoted him as saying: "It would produce very useful cultural, financial and political contacts for this country and among other things would enable Irish athletes to compete in the Commonwealth Games". The comments were allegedly made at the launch of a book by the Reform Movement called Ireland and the Commonwealth: Towards Membership.[33] In May 2011 he emphatically denied the claim as "totally untrue".[34] An uncited article in The Sunday Times claimed that Norris had, on more than one occasion, denounced the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising as "terrorists".[8] In May 2011, Norris denied the article's claim, saying "That's not true, it's a slur, and it's not fair on me. Terrorists are people who use civilian casualties to advance a political end. The men of 1916 produced the proclamation, addressed equally – in an age when women didn't have the vote - to 'Irishmen and Irishwomen', that's wonderful!". The newspaper printed a retraction.[34]

Criticism of pope

Norris has made statements about Catholic social teaching on homosexuality, particularly in relation to the Papacy. He criticised Pope John Paul II for attacking homosexuality because the pope's hostile remarks led to anti-gay violence, saying that the pope was an "instrument for evil as far as I'm concerned because these constant, unremitting, ignorant, ill-informed attacks on the gay community have led to violence against the gay community". Norris also described the pope's position as "calculated and deliberate wickedness" because he "closes down scholarly enquiry" and because he "marginalised all the wonderful people like Oscar Romero, Leonardo Boff, Hans Kung, Charles Curran, all these marvellous people who are the future and the hope of the Church and, instead, put into place these mindless bureaucrats, which is intensely sad."[35] Commenting on then Cardinal Ratzinger, he said, "Ratzinger, who is, in his mind-set, a Nazi" because he is "afraid to tell the truth," and because he and John Paul II "won't even let themselves be in the presence of the truth, because it would shatter their very stylised view of things."[35] He later stated that he regretted using the term "Nazi" in reference to Ratzinger.[36]

2002 Magill magazine interview

In January 2002, the politics/current affairs magazine Magill published an interview where Norris discussed social attitudes to incest, age of consent, and paedophilia.[37] The interview contains statements which Norris denies making, such as:

I cannot understand how anybody could find children of either sex the slightest bit attractive sexually... but in terms of classic paedophilia, as practised by the Greeks for example, where it is an older man introducing a younger man or boy to adult life, I think that there can be something to be said for it.

According to Norris, he was only read two paragraphs of the interview before publication, and he asked for corrections to be made to those paragraphs, and these corrections were not made.[38] The interviewer, restaurant critic Helen Lucy Burke, says that she had read the article to Norris before publication, and that he had wholeheartedly endorsed what was written. The interview was partially recorded but Burke said in June 2011 that she has the tape but can't find it.[39] Burke called Norris's comments on sex with minors "disturbing"[37] and later "evil" and "against the law".[39] The Ireland on Sunday newspaper ran the headline "Senator Backs Sex With Children" a few days after the 2002 interview. When the article resurfaced in 2011, Norris said:

I have learned, over ten years. I originally refused to do the interview because I said this is all going to be sensational stuff about sex, that's what journalists are interested in, she said no, this is going to be a positive profile for your [senate 2002] election. [...] Out of politeness, which was a really foolish mistake, I didn't stand up and leave the restaurant. [...] I was foolish to engage in an academic discussion about ancient Greece with a restaurant critic.[38]

In a May 2011 statement on his Presidential campaign website, Norris affirmed "I did not ever and would not approve of the finished article as it appeared". Norris asserts that he and Burke engaged in an "academic discussion about Classical Greece and sexual activity in a historical context; it was a hypothetical, intellectual conversation" and that the "presentation of references to sexuality in the article attributed to me were misleading in that they do not convey the context in which they were made".[40] Norris also spoke about the Magill profile in an interview with Joe Jackson for the Sunday Independent, in which he refutes the allegations, saying he responded in "horror", and that “it so completely misrepresents everything I said. In the interview I said I cannot understand how anyone would consider it appropriate to have sex with children".[41]

Ezra Yizhak Controversy

On 30th July, 2011, a story broke in the Irish media that there had been a spate of resignations from Norris's senior campaign team [42]. There was speculation that the resignations arose due to Norris's relationship with Ezra Yizhak Nawi, who had been convicted of indecently assaulting a minor in 1992 [43] [44]. Some of Norris's parliamentary collegues, who had agreed to lend support to his Presidential nomination, have called for clarification on this issue [43].

Awards

  • Council of Europe Travelling Scholarship
  • Walter Wormser Harris Prize'
  • Foundation Scholarship in English Literature and Language
  • European Human Rights Prize (nomination)[45]

References

  1. ^ a b "Liveline Presidential Poll". RTÉ Radio 1. 26 May 2011.
  2. ^ "Norris tops President poll". Irish Independent. 10 January 2011.
  3. ^ a b "David Norris ahead in Red C presidential poll". RTÉ News. 10 January 2011.
  4. ^ "Mr. David Norris". Oireachtas Members Database. Retrieved 17 February 2008.
  5. ^ "Norris meets with pols, LGBT activists in New York". The Irish Emigrant. Retrieved 24 July 2011.
  6. ^ a b "Reformer Recognises the Importance of Being Earnest". The Sydney Morning Herald. 28 October 1988.
  7. ^ a b "Overlong, overrated and unmoving: Roddy Doyle's verdict on James Joyce's Ulysses". The Guardian. 10 February 2004.
  8. ^ a b c d e "Profile: David Norris". The Sunday Times. 28 February 2010. Retrieved 25 October 2010.
  9. ^ http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2011/05/DNmagill1.jpg
  10. ^ "A morning for the stout-hearted, by Jiminy". Irish Independent. Retrieved 17 June 2003. Beautiful, sinister, melodic, whispering," enthused Senator David Norris. Oh yes. He was there, being very David Norris and wearing a very fetching hat. Fedora, David? "A genuine Imperial Stetson, dated Chicago 1930," he brayed.
  11. ^ a b Lacey, Brian (2008) Terrible Queer Creatures: Homosexuality in Irish History. Dublin
  12. ^ Norris v. Ireland - 10581/83 (European Court of Human Rights)
  13. ^ "David Norris". ElectionsIreland.org. Retrieved 16 January 2010.
  14. ^ Hunt, Joanne (28 April 2011). "Norris re-elected to Seanad". The Irish Times. Retrieved 28 April 2011.
  15. ^ "David Norris officially begins his Presidential bid at the Science Gallery, Dublin". Norris for President web site.
  16. ^ "Norris still the people's first choice as President". Irish Independent. 3 July 2011.
  17. ^ a b "Controversy fails to dent Norris' poll popularity". Irish Examiner. Retrieved 4 July 2011.
  18. ^ "Poll: Who would get your vote to be the next President of Ireland?". TheJournal.ie. 11 July 2011.
  19. ^ "What's Left Tracker (PowerPoint file)". Irish League of Credit Unions. 8 July 2011.
  20. ^ "Norris ahead in presidency poll". Irish Times. 20 July 2011.
  21. ^ "Fine Gael research says Norris will beat Mitchell in Aras race". Irish Independent. 11 July 2011.
  22. ^ "David Norris still sees his destiny as Ireland's first gay president". The Guardian. 12 June 2011.
  23. ^ "David Norris launches presidential campaign". RTÉ News. 14 March 2011. {{cite news}}: Text "http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0314/norrisd.html" ignored (help)
  24. ^ "Norris crosses first presidency hurdle". RTÉ News. 9 May 2011.
  25. ^ Minihan, Mary (27 May 2011). "Presidential race likely to be a fraught affair". The Irish Times.
  26. ^ Cullen, Paul (16 May 2011). "Norris writes to Independent TDs seeking presidency support"". The Irish Times.
  27. ^ "David Norris hits out at campaign 'sabotage'". RTÉ News. 31 May 2011.
  28. ^ Fionnan Sheahan (10 June 2011). "Norris in last-ditch attempt to save presidential bid". Irish Independent. Retrieved 12 June 2011.
  29. ^ Harry McGee (11 June 2011). "Time running out for Norris to turn campaign around". Irish Times. Retrieved 12 June 2011.
  30. ^ Joe Jackson (12 June 2011). "Despite a 'dirty fight' Norris says he will be next President". Sunday Independent. Retrieved 12 June 2011.
  31. ^ "Two more Senators back Norris bid". The Irish Times. 22 July 2011.
  32. ^ "Seanad Eireann Debate Vol. 188 No. 22 Page 4". Seanad Éireann. 11 March 2008. Retrieved 24 February 2011.
  33. ^ "Republic of Ireland should rejoin Commonwealth, says senator". The Belfast Telegraph. 21 May 2010. Retrieved 25 October 2010.
  34. ^ a b Jackson, Joe (22 May 2011). "'All my life, I have fought against being labelled and against stigma'". Sunday Independent. Retrieved 24 May 2011.
  35. ^ a b "'The Pope is Evil' says Gay Irish Senator, David Norris". Gay Today. Retrieved 25 October 2010.
  36. ^ "Norris 'confident' of nomination". The Irish Times. 9 June 2011.
  37. ^ a b Helen Lucy Burke (January 2002). "The Free Radical". Magill, scanned by thejournal.ie. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help) [1][2][3]
  38. ^ a b "Pat Kenny interview". RTÉ Radio 1.
  39. ^ a b "Burke interview] (3 mins 44 secs)". RTÉ Radio 1.
  40. ^ "Ask David: Statement on Magill Magazine profile". Norris for President website. Retrieved 30 May 2011.
  41. ^ "David Norris – The Joe Jackson interviews 2002 and 2011". Retrieved 30 May 2011.
  42. ^ "David Norris's presidential bid in doubt". Retrieved 30 July 2011.
  43. ^ a b "Candidates meet for first presidential debate as Norris staff quit". Retrieved 30 July 2011.
  44. ^ "Jerusalem - Israeli police refused to arrest a convicted left wing". Retrieved 30 July 2011.
  45. ^ "David Norris Presidential campaign website". Retrieved 18 May 2011. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)

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