Right to question accusers’ bona fides

RE Jim Cosgrove’s letter (August 3) querying the ”driving force” behind my comparative review of the failures of Church and state (Letters, August 1), permit me to respond that my driving force is no more than to bring some balance and objectivity to the public debate and to question the motives of those currently laying claim to the high moral ground in this state.

I totally concur with him that all Christians should be held to account by their own standards which are the standards of the Gospel of Christ. Absolutely. However, it is surely quite in order to question the bona fides of those who denounce the Church and its ministers for child abuse while remain remarkably sanguine about far greater abuses under the aegis of public bodies.

The Norris controversy is another indication of the hypocrisy I refer to where a would-be President and protector of our Constitution and laws is on record, at least twice, for opposing an age of consent and has been allowed to finesse his way out of it with the media’s help. Had a cleric said as much how different would be the response?