No common ground on nature of child abuse

IN response to Andrew Lally (‘Sexual orientation has nothing to do with abuse of children’, Letters, June 22), firstly let me say that if he was bullied at school I would have been the first to defend him. I came across the type also and despise all bullies. But that is where the common ground between us ends.

The profile of the majority of the sexual abusers in the Ryan report was most definitely homosexual and not paedophile in nature. In more general terms, Mr Lally’s attempt to use the classic homosexual martyrdom ploy is unconvincing. While I am totally opposed to any kind of discrimination, homosexuals don’t apply the same standards of respect or tolerance to their opponents. For example, in California recently the passing of Proposition 8 (to restrict marriage to the union of a man and woman, a perfectly rational commonsense proposal) was greeted with a crescendo of racism by the homosexual community against African-Americans because the latter voted in significant numbers for the proposition. Does Mr Lally condemn such behaviour, or is his outrage selective to me and the Irish Examiner?

Eric Conway

Balreask Village

Navan

Co Meath