IRELAND: Anti-Gay Group Reveals Tactics For Stopping Same-Sex Marriage

A JMG reader writes:

The No side's strategy in Ireland has just been revealed in a video where the Iona [Institute] group's David Quinn explicitly links the campaign against same sex marriage to the campaign against abortion. The video (below) suggests that if Ireland votes to give uppity gay people equality in May then progressives will be emboldened and by 2017 might win an abortion referendum. So gays must be be roadkill to prevent that from happening. Gays have to be thrown under the bus to stop an even bigger development (abortion rights) later on. Plays the long game, David Quinn. The real point appears to be to stop ordinary Irish voters from thinking something profoundly dangerous like their voice (and vote) counts.

The first five or six minutes are quite telling. 

RELATED: A petition has been launched for the Irish government to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Iona Institute.

The Iona Institute market themselves as a charity interested in the promotion of Christian religion within Ireland. In reality the only thing the Iona Institute actually engage in is religiously motivated political lobbying. The Irish taxpayers are the ones footing the bill for this wrongly awarded charitable status. The Irish tax code does not support private companies that engage in religiously motivated lobbying for the influence of civil law and it should not be allowed to continue at the cost of the tax payer. Under Irish law an organisation can get tax exemption if it engages in one of the following: relief of poverty, advancement of education, advancement of religion, other acts of a charitable nature beneficial to the community. The Irish exchequer is subsidizing a private lobbying group by mistakenly treating the Iona Institute as a charity.

In the United States, anti-gay groups evade similar restrictions by operating their political campaigns under separate entities, usually ones with the word "action" in their names.