SIR – A great deal of citizen comment in the media is typical of the ‘new' liberal tyranny, which Ireland is being hit over the head with in recent times.
SIR – A great deal of citizen comment in the media is typical of the ‘new’ liberal tyranny, which Ireland is being hit over the head with in recent times.
We read diatribes liberally sprinkled with references to an olden-times shortage of condoms, sanitary products, spermicidal stuff, divorce and gay marriage ,and recently the icing on cakes issue, generally garnished with anti-Christian pronouncements.
Writing as an atheist for more than 55 years and steeped in the freedom of apostasy, I see no justification in attacking the beliefs of people like the Belfast bakers who could not, in conscience, bake a cake with a homosexual theme.
Pharmacies of undetermined religious leanings also come under the cosh as to what they should sell to cater for this new dispensation. Sell everything ‘we’ demand, is the catch-cry.
Businesspeople of a religious persuasion, like the Asher family, ought be allowed to bake cakes without being set up for prosecution by a lobby which would be delighted to see the that family pilloried, picketed, boycotted and even made bankrupt.
If there is not choice and difference of opinion allowed, then growing fear ensues. Making novelty laws will not take away the troubled mind of the innocent citizen.
The citizens of Ireland, north and south, do not need lessons in tolerance from shrill folk whose view of democracy is only along the narrow lines of recent referendums affecting small minorities.
Stay calm, and be reasonable. One of the sweetest gifts is to give others the right to be wrong, as one perceives this. Cynicism and anger is destructive.
And, the colours of the rainbow belong to everybody.
Robert Sullivan,
Bantry.
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