David Norris and academic discussions.

Status
Not open for further replies.
Here's a link to the letters

[broken link removed]

In page 3 of the letter address to the Israeli High Court judges, David Norris states

"Fourthly I travelled to Israel specifically for the hearing of the last case in May of this year and was present in court when the case was heard and the judgement read. I therefore personally witnessed some troubling anomalies in the majority verdict, such as the constant insistence by the presiding judge that there was absolutely no difference between this case and a similar case involving heterosexual relations. This is certainly factually incorrect.I would be more than happy to give the court the benefit of my expert knowledge on this and other matters if it were found possible for me to give evidence in the matter."

What does this mean?

Is David Norris insinuating that statutory rape of a 15 year-old girl by a 45 year-old man is different to the statutory rape of a 15 year-old boy by a 45 year-old man and that somehow homosexual statutory rape is a lesser crime than heterosexual statutory rape?

Because that's how it reads to me.
 
The_Banker said:
Norris' campaign team pulled the plug very quickly. That says it all.

onq, can I ask a question? Are you close to the Norris campaign team? Your defence is pretty stout in the face of (what I believe to be) unbelievable stupidity by Norris (at best).

I am far from a right wing homophobic zealot (anyone who reads my posts will know my anti catholic church views) and I would have voted for Norris before this but I could never vote for a man who would write a letter in support of a 45 year old man who had a 15 year old lover, be it hetrosexual or homosexual.

He did the correct thing in resigning and I hope (for his sake nothing else comes out) and maybe he was set up but you just cannot defend his actions.

Kathleen Lynch wrote a similar letter for a double rapist in Cork (this is in the public domain). She was expected to top the poll in Cork NC but didn't. Most politicians do this but it is 100% wrong.
Click to expand...

Yes, you can ask.

I am nowhere near the Norris Campaign team.
I wouldn't share oxygen with those lame incompetents.

If I had been on his campaign team he wouldn't have resigned.
That's not mere rhetoric - I wouldn't have taken the job without that control.
Politics is ten per cent rhetoric and ninety per cent hanging on until the votes are in.

------------------------------

Only one or two people who were against Norris were homophobes, the rest were just main party shills acting like transvestites on a night out.
They overdid it and defamed him, since even on the worst legal interpretation Nawi isn't a pedophile and Norris didn't excuse or condone his crime.
They shills deserved a slapping and they got one over on the Journal. One of them looked like he'd followed me over here and was dealt with, that's all. I don't think you're a homophobe.

------------------------------

As for your other comments, supporting perfect people is easy Banker, any fool can do it and feel good about themselves.

Supporting flawed or self-destructive people is a heartscald and underneath his smile you can see that Norris has suffered through Nawi's promiscuity, not just in this instance, but in other instances.
People deeply in love will do all they can for the one they love, even when they know it will put their reputation and integrity on the line.

I respect Norris for his passionate commitment to another flawed human being and I will defend his right to support him.
I pity people who have never loved another person that much, for they're just a passengers in this life.

Norris isn't a passenger.

ONQ.
 
DB74 said:
Here's a link to the letters

[broken link removed]

In page 3 of the letter address to the Israeli High Court judges, David Norris states

"Fourthly I travelled to Israel specifically for the hearing of the last case in May of this year and was present in court when the case was heard and the judgement read. I therefore personally witnessed some troubling anomalies in the majority verdict, such as the constant insistence by the presiding judge that there was absolutely no difference between this case and a similar case involving heterosexual relations. This is certainly factually incorrect.I would be more than happy to give the court the benefit of my expert knowledge on this and other matters if it were found possible for me to give evidence in the matter."

What does this mean?

Is David Norris insinuating that statutory rape of a 15 year-old girl by a 45 year-old man is different to the statutory rape of a 15 year-old boy by a 45 year-old man and that somehow homosexual statutory rape is a lesser crime than heterosexual statutory rape?

Because that's how it reads to me.
Click to expand...

Haven't a clue on this one.

However there was an interesting post on the Journal by a gay guy who stated that in the absence of societal support structures for adolescent gays, he was aware that many turned to older men for love and support. He wasn't condoning it but he said it was commonplace in the gay community.

Perhaps that's what Norris was referring to.

ONQ.
 
Sunny said:
We will never agree but writing a character reference for a person found guilty of statutory rape is defending the person. I never claimed that Norris defended the offence (though I think he has dubious views). Like I say, I would never defend a 45 year old relative, never mind friend if they were found guilty of that offence. That might make me a crap human being but so be it.
Click to expand...


I don't think it makes you a crap human being at all Sunny.
I too would find it very hard to do what Norris has done.

I also accept there are hairs being split here.
But supporting him by referring to his many good qualities is not defending him for committing a crime, however you spin it.

:)

ONQ.
 
onq said:
Lobbying for reduced sentences on compassionate grounds for convicted criminals is now outlawed.
Click to expand...

Reduced sentences on compassionate grounds shouldn't be restricted to those who have friends in high places that will lobby for them.
 
I am not spinning anything and I am bowing out of this disturbing discussion.
 
MrMan said:
I have read all of your posts now on this subject and I feel that you are defending the man you thought Norris was rather than the man he has turned out to be. You say his letter was a mark of the mans 'humanity' but like him you never speak of the 15 year olds role in this crime. When an underage person is taken into a sexual relationship with an adult it is often referred to as grooming yet on this thread people are amazingly saying that he was almost 'of age' and debating the finer points of how the letter was written and on what paper.
Sticking with the facts, Norris looked for clemency for Nawi on the crime of statutory rape - enough said really.
Click to expand...

I am quite clear on Norris the man.
He was in love with a promiscuous partner who went a bridge too far.

---------------------------

You are quire correct when you point out that I have said nothing about Nawi's young lover.
I don't speak about the fifteen year olds role in this crime because I don't want to impugn his reputation - I don't know what role he had.

If you're asking me to speculate, then let me say that I strongly suspect that he was drawn initially to Nawi because of his relative fame for his humanitarian actions in support of the Palestinian people.
Like many young gay men, he may have sought the company of an older gay man - while foreign to heterosexuals this seems common enough shared experience with gays.
According to a recent post on the Journal, this is common in the gay community in the absence of support structures for young gay men, regardless of how the wider heterosexual community view it.

I also call Nawis' lover a 'young gay man" advisedly.

Israeli law permits consent to be given by males as young as 14 providing their partners satisfy three conditions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_Asia#Israel

"Israel

"According to the Israeli Penal Code of 1977 the age of consent in Israel is 16[27] for any form of sexual relations. A special case arises when a person between ages 14–16 had sexual relations with an older partner; in this case the older partner would be exempt of criminal liability if three conditions are met: The age difference between the partners was less than three years, the younger partner gave consent and the act was done out of "regular friendly relations" and without the abuse of power."

This does not excuse Nawi's actions, in fact it marks him out as being far too old, but it means that under Israeli law you cannot portray a fifteen year old as a child who cannot - under any circumstances - give consent, as others have tried to do.

The Nawi affair is a bit beyond my experience, so I cannot comment any further.

---------------------------

In relation to "grooming", you seem to be transposing terms more associated with child abuse in the place of Nawi's crime of sex with a minor AKA statutory rape.
It is widely reported that pedophiles first "groom" children for sex through making them accustomed to their touch, voice etc. to prepare for sexual contact.

However while a child is defined as being pre-pubescent, a male of fifteen is not pre-pubescent and may in fact have largely completed his pubertal development.
This not to suggest he has attained emotional maturity - afifteen year old could certainly come "under the influence" of an older male.

But in fact, according to the Journal post I referred to above, he may actively be seeking this kind of relationship.
This suggests an active role for Nawi's young lover and thus this does not seem to fit my understanding of "grooming" per se.

While I know several members of the gay community as friends, I myself am heterosexual and this debate has reached my limit in a sector of society in which I am not an initiate.


ONQ.
 
ONQ, I am glad he's out of the race because of the points I wrote about earlier. The fact that a candidate is homosexual would probably make me more likely to vote for them, but not Norris. I just don't like him. He's very opinionated and intolerant of people who don't share his views. I don't consider his as the right person for the job.
 
Purple, I have to hand it to you.

You are the first person I have seen making a post that is actually relevant to the discussion of whether or not Norris is suitable for the role of President.

I cannot disagree with your points because I have seen some evidence of what you say and the way the "campaign team" collapsed suggested that all was not well in Camp David as some have dubbed it.

ONQ.
 
Complainer said:
Reduced sentences on compassionate grounds shouldn't be restricted to those who have friends in high places that will lobby for them.
Click to expand...

Complainer I was being ironic.

In that the strident anti-Norris campaigners had spiked the ground for anyone seeking to get support for leniency on compassionate grounds.

This will tend to lead to more straight-laced as opposed to genuinely ethical politics, which I think is a repressive, retrograde step.

I agree, in other words.

ONQ.
 
That is probably the most disturbing post I have ever read on AAM or maybe I am not intellectual enough to get ONQs finesse. Either way, that's me out of this
 
I think a show of spoiled votes would be an appropriate response to the way the mainstream parties smeared David Norris into oblivion.
Put down Norris name and mark your “X” beside it.
It won’t shame the shameless, but it will put them on notice.
 
Will we have as much coverage about the remaining hetrosexual canditates sexuality over the coming weeks?
 
Purple said:
... He's very opinionated and intolerant of people who don't share his views. I don't consider his as the right person for the job.
Click to expand...

I have to agree with Purple here. He can be quite trenchant and dismissive. This is probably a consequence of having to fight his corner often as a sole voice. He probably doesn't have the qualities needed to be President.

But I like him nonetheless. He is a "character". Witty, compassionate, passionate and colourful. People warm to him easily and, I think forgive him easily because they recognise his inate niceness. It's the mark of the man that he was brought down by love, and a flawed loyalty. It's also a mark of him that he recognised this flaw and owned up fully.

This was no grubby deal that caught him out, no politicking or self-serving motives lay behind it. He won't walk away richer and he didn't make us squirm as we watched him try to blather his way out of it. All of which are so typical of Irish politics. Even in his going he enriched politics. "keep trying, fail better", quite a legacy.His defeat had all the passion of a Greek tragedy. How appropriate is that?

Compare this to the grubby and seedy way this story broke. Someone or some group rooted around in the rubbish bin of history to find the "dirt" on Norris and do him in. They succeeded. What were their motives? We don't know, but I doubt they were honourable. I doubt they gave a damn about the boy involved, all that mattered was destroying Norris. I would really like to see these people face the scrutiny Norris has faced, I would like to know who was involved and why. We rightly wonder about Norris's motives in writing the letters. We should wonder just as much about the shady people who exposed them.
 
horusd said:
Compare this to the grubby and seedy way this story broke. Someone or some group rooted around in the rubbish bin of history to find the "dirt" on Norris and do him in. They succeeded. What were their motives? We don't know, but I doubt they were honourable. I doubt they gave a damn about the boy involved, all that mattered was destroying Norris. I would really like to see these people face the scrutiny Norris has faced, I would like to know who was involved and why. We rightly wonder about Norris's motives in writing the letters. We should wonder just as much about the shady people who exposed them.
Click to expand...

I don't think you would have to look much further than Mossad for the source.
 
The strange thing about the whole episode is along with the previous interview he seems to reinforce the impression that gay men are "into young boys" or that he at least sees nothing wrong with this.
This is ironic as he has a reputation for doing much on equality rights for gay people.
 
onq said:
I think a show of spoiled votes would be an appropriate response to the way the mainstream parties smeared David Norris into oblivion.
Put down Norris name and mark your “X” beside it.
It won’t shame the shameless, but it will put them on notice.
Click to expand...
You might as well write 'Dustin The Turkey' on it. It is a meaningless action. The only people who will notice will be the non-political vote counters and maybe a few low-level tallymen.
horusd said:
Compare this to the grubby and seedy way this story broke. Someone or some group rooted around in the rubbish bin of history to find the "dirt" on Norris and do him in. They succeeded. What were their motives? We don't know, but I doubt they were honourable. I doubt they gave a damn about the boy involved, all that mattered was destroying Norris. I would really like to see these people face the scrutiny Norris has faced, I would like to know who was involved and why. We rightly wonder about Norris's motives in writing the letters. We should wonder just as much about the shady people who exposed them.
Click to expand...
The difference is that whoever exposed him is not standing for the role of President. It is not unreasonable, and is indeed quite healthy, that the track record of those standing for public office is trawled over with a fine toothcomb. It is far better that this issue came to light now, than later, when President Norris is due to visit Isreal, for example.
 
So far we have posters say that 'It's the mark of the man that he was brought down by love, and a flawed loyalty. It's also a mark of him that he recognised this flaw and owned up fully' as if to say that there is some admiration for what he did here, surely not? Others have used the fact that he feared that Nawi may take his life if he were to be imprisoned, well then don't do the crime, and isn't that a fear for every person going to prison.
We also have 'the dirty tricks campaign', do posters feel that it is better to be ignorant of a candidates background?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top