Sex abuse survivor and campaigner
Christine Buckley has lambasted Senator David Norris for his comments on
paedophilia, saying she feels betrayed by his ‘disturbing’ views.
Miss
Buckley, one of the first victims to blow the whistle on institutional
and clerical abuse of children, said presidential hopeful Mr Norris
‘does not appear to see the moral dilemma in abusing a child, the
psychological impact, the emotional impact, the shattered life…’
And
she dismissed Mr Norris’s claims that there was ‘a lot of nonsense’
being talked about paedophilia, saying bluntly: ‘There’s no nonsense
about paedophiles – they’re monsters.’
The
criticism from as respected and well-loved a campaigner as Miss Buckley
could have a devastating impact on Mr Norris’s bid to become our next
President.
His supporters have so far attempted to present questions about his views as a witch-hunt led by a few homophobes.
However,
no such claims could be levelled against Miss Buckley, who has won a
string of awards for her work with victims, as well as widespread praise
for her courage in confronting her own abusers at the Church-run
Goldenbridge industrial school.
Miss
Buckley spoke to the Irish Mail on Sunday after reading an unedited
copy of the entire interview Mr Norris gave to Magill magazine in 2002.
In
it, he not only endorsed ‘classical paedophilia’ as practised in
ancient Greece but also suggested that incest should generally not be
illegal, that people had become hysterical about paedophilia and that
sometimes, reporting sex abuse was more damaging to a child than the
abuse itself.
Miss Buckley, 64, says she was left
‘completely bewildered’ and betrayed by the man who had supported her in
her quest for justice for the victims of clerical abuse.
She said: ‘I’m just terribly,
terribly disappointed. There’s a huge naivety I believe here and I think
that’s the issue that I’d have most concerns with.
'I
don’t think, for example, that David Norris would ever attempt to abuse
a minor, but there’s nothing here that leads me to believe that the
whole issue of abuse has actually hit the ventricles of his brain.
‘There’s
the same sort of naivety used, that type of behaviour and language used
by some religious orders who were brought before the Ryan Commission.’
Mr
Norris has said his comments were ‘taken out of context’ but as the MoS
reports, his comments were in fact more wide-ranging and more
worrying than even the controversial excerpts debated so far.
Miss
Buckley said: ‘To use what was acceptable, if it was, in classical
Greece in relation to elders “educating” young boys as a reason to say
in the 20th century that he would have liked it… for somebody who is
contesting such a position, that’s kind of disturbing.’
Miss
Buckley also noted Mr Norris’s public support for poet Cathal Ó
Searcaigh in 2008 when he was exposed as a sex tourist who exploited
teenagers in Nepal. ‘That proves really that he knew exactly what he was
saying… and that he still continued on that mantra years later.’
She
said she had been an admirer of Mr Norris and had strongly supported
his campaign to decriminalise homosexuality but now: ‘I feel a sense of
betrayal… I thought I knew the man but I really didn’t.’
Asked
what she would say when next they met, she said: ‘Devastated,
absolutely shocked David, that I did regard you in high esteem.’
On
his presidential ambitions she said: ‘Under no circumstances would
America have somebody with those views running for election. We know the
fall-out from Bill Clinton – and he was with a consenting adult.’
Asked if he should apologise for his comments she said: ‘Absolutely.’
Mr Norris could not be reached for comment last night.
The truth of what Norris said in that interview
- On child sexual abuse: ‘Children in some instances are more damaged by the condemnation than the experience’
- Asked if incest was acceptable, he said there was a case to ban it... but only for girls who might have an ‘undesirable’ pregnancy
- On paedophilia: ‘There’s a lot of nonsense about paedophilia... I think there is a complete and utter hysteria about this subject’
- Challenged on whether a child can give ‘informed consent’ to sex: ‘The law should take into account consent rather than age’
We can reveal the shocking truth about Senator David Norris’s interview with
Magill magazine in 2002, in which he clearly sets out a string of highly
controversial views on sex, paedophilia, the age of consent, incest and
abuse.
The MoS has tracked
down a copy of the interview – which was given for Mr Norris to ‘set
the record straight’ because he felt that he had been misquoted in
another newspaper on the subject of gay marriage.
Since
the controversy over his comments reignited last week, Mr Norris has
argued that interviewer Helen Lucy Burke’s presentation of his comments
on paedophilia were ‘misleading’ and that his ‘references to sexual
activity’ were ‘taken out of context’.
However
the comments were in fact part of a much longer discussion in which Mr
Norris sets out a view that, by and large, people should be allowed to
do whatever they want with whomever they want.
He
maintains that consent should be more important than age when it comes
to laws governing sexual behaviour, and does not condemn incest.
Miss Burke herself describes some of his views as ‘deeply troubling’.
According
to Miss Burke, the senator objected to ‘state interference’ in people’s
sex lives, recording his initially cautious comments as follows:
‘I believe very strongly in people being allowed to make any choices they like, within very wide limits.
‘But I also believe that once you make those choices, you should take responsibility for them.’
‘I
wouldn’t draw the line for other people. I would hope that we could
produce a society in which people would be inclined to draw lines for
themselves.’
It is at this point that the Trinity senator’s views become controversial.
‘There’s
a lot of nonsense about paedophilia,’ he is quoted as saying,
continuing, ‘I can say this because I haven’t the slightest interest in
children, or in people who are considerably younger than me.
‘I
cannot understand how anybody could find children of either sex the
slightest bit attractive sexually. To me, what is attractive about
people is the fact that they display the signs of sexual maturity.
‘But
pre-pubescent children who lack any identifying characteristics of
sexual maturity, I cannot understand why anybody would find them
sexually appropriate. On the other hand – yes, they do find them so. 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.’
While
Mr Norris reiterates that he is not attracted to the very young, he
again endorses ‘classical paedophilia’ as something he would have
enjoyed.
‘Now again, this
is not something that appeals to me, although when I was younger it
would most certainly have appealed to me in the sense that I would have
greatly relished the prospect of an older, attractive, mature man taking
me under his wing, lovingly introducing me to sexual realities, and
treating me with affection and teaching me about life – yes, I think
that would be lovely; I would have enjoyed that.’
Mr
Norris then went on to talk about public attitudes to paedophilia, and
is quoted as saying: ‘But I think there is complete and utter hysteria
about this subject, and there is also confusion between homosexuality
and paedophilia on the one hand, and between paedophilia and pederasty
on the other’.
Miss Burke
notes at this point that Mr Norris later clarified to say that, in her
words, ‘genital sexual penetration of juveniles of either sex would be
inappropriate and harmful’.
But
mid-conversation he went on to accuse the press of vilifying
paedophiles, saying: ‘For example, the gutter press in England and in
Ireland fanned the flames of this kind of thing, and they dehumanised
people, called them evil beasts, perverts and all this kind of thing.’
Mr
Norris is later quoted as saying: ‘Of course there is a whole spectrum.
In my opinion, the teacher, or Christian Brother, who puts his hand
into a boy’s pocket during a history lesson, that is one end of the
spectrum.
'But then
there is another: there is the person who attacks children of either
sex, rapes them, brutalises them and then murders them. But the way
things are presented here it’s almost as if they were all exactly the
same and I don’t think they are.’
Mr
Norris then makes his most extraordinary claim so far. Magill quotes
him as telling Miss Burke: ‘And I have to tell you this – I think that
the children in some instances are more damaged by the condemnation than
by the actual experience.’
Miss
Burke then writes that Mr Norris ‘did not appear to endorse any minimum
age, or endorse my protest that a child was not capable of informed
consent’, quoting him as saying: ‘The law in this sphere should take
into account consent rather than age.’
When
asked about incest, he seemed to have no objections in principle. As
Miss Burke explained: ‘He hesitated, and conceded that in the case of
girls a case could be made for a ban, as a possible resulting pregnancy
might be genetically undesirable.’
In a statement early last week, Mr Norris defended his comments.
He
said: ‘During the course of a comprehensive conversation, Miss Burke
and I engaged an academic discussion about classical Greece and sexual
activity in a historical context; it was a hypothetical, intellectual
conversation which should not have been seen as a considered
representation of my view... the references to sexual activity were what
were emphasised and subsequently picked up and taken out of context in
other media outlets.
‘The
presentation of references to sexuality in the article attributed to me
were misleading... I did not ever and would not approve of the finished
article as it appeared.’
The
consultant editor of Magill magazine in 2002, John Waters, insisted on
Friday that Mr Norris had been given two opportunities by Miss Burke to
reconsider his comments prior to publication, but that after asking for
minor amendments ‘pronounced himself happy for his views to go into
print’.