On Wednesday afternoon last, Gript managed to sit in as a guest on a webinar hosted by the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the Revenue section of the Department of Finance.
It featured a presentation by Chris Rowan of BeLongTo. The event was attended by about 80 Revenue staff and one Gript writer.
During that presentation Rowan made a serious and potentially defamatory claim about Enoch Burke – and he dismissed reporting which showed BeLongTo had been instructing teachers to lie to parents about their children as “far-right groups spreading a lot of misinformation” about the work of BeLongTo.
Rowan told Revenue Staff that an Irish judge had said it “can never be a crime to kill a gay person” – and that one of the reasons there is no cure for AIDS is that the disease is seen as mostly hurting gay men.
Rowan also told attendees that there was a paper-thin line between free-speech and hate-speech, and offered disputed claims regarding the number of inter-sex people as fact.
To the approximately 80 civil servants present, Rowan said that he would be sending them all a glossary of terms, as they have done to other public employees including teachers, in order to assist them in identifying and calling our wrong speech and to help them to re-tailor their language to the demands of the correct speech.
This event was described as an opportunity for “parents and carers” to talk with BeLongTo “about the current lived experience of LGBTQ+ young people today in Ireland.”
One woman attending questioned Mr Rowan about claims regarding BeLongTo’s policy in relation to informing parents about their own children.
As Gript previously reported, Fatima Gunning and Gary Kavanagh have confirmed that the Ombudsman for Children Office was aware that a BeLongTo booklet explicitly advised teachers to lie to parents if they were asked about any knowledge the teacher or school might have that their child had identified as being gay or transgender.
ROWAN’S PRESENTATION
Much of the presentation by Rowan was a history of the LGBTQ+ movement in Ireland and the proper ending of any actions by the state directed at gay people.
He did claim, however, that the judge in the case of the killing of Declan Flynn had said that it “can never be a crime to kill a gay person” – which does not correspond with what was said by the judge in that case.
He also asserted that one of the reasons there is no cure for AIDS is that the disease is seen as mostly hurting gay men.
Some of his other references could perhaps do with more investigation, including the claim that a survey had revealed that 97% of young LGBTQ+ people were feeling anxiety, stress and depression which, it was implied, was mostly due to a hostile cultural environment.
Part of that cultural environment is public attitudes and Rowan seemed to have had the current proposed legislation in mind when he stated that there is a “thin line between free speech and hate crime.”
The rest of his remarks gave the impression that he would obviously prefer that there be little or no tolerance for anything that he believes constitutes offence speech, which includes failure to use another person’s preferred pronouns.
It was noticeable that he made no claim to the legal position surrounding this, perhaps being conscious that the fact that there is no legal obligation in any context to do so has been exposed by Gript and others in the last week, and since confirmed by a Government Minister.
Rowan did make the claim that there are as many intersex people in the world as people with ginger hair – a claim that is disputed.
The number of people born with ambiguous sexual organs, which is the scientific basis of the term intersex, is estimated at between 0.018% and 0.05% of births.
ENOCH BURKE
The brief question and answer session after Rowan’s presentation heard from a woman who expressed concern about BeLongTo’s material.
She said that she was concerned about a BeLongTo guide in which she said teachers and youth workers were advised “to lie to parents”, who the woman later described as the “primary carers.”
Rowan was clearly uncomfortable and almost immediately reverted to the default response about “far-right groups spreading a lot of misinformation” about the work of BeLongTo.
He also attempted to turn the issue into one of teachers “outing” children, but his interlocutor was not to be distracted. She insisted upon her point that parents could be misled and that BeLongTo was encouraging this, and said that teachers were being told to “effectively lie” to parents.
“If you are misleading a parent, you are not respecting a parent,” she said. “And that really concerns me as a parent. Parents are the primary carers for their own children at all times, they love them.”
The woman said that she understood that the parents of the child in the Enoch Burke case seemed to be unaware for several months that it was their own child who was the subject of Burke’s refusal to use the preferred pronouns.
Having already been requested to “just make your point short,” the concerned parent ended by describing what BeLongTo were advocating in relation to all of this as an “attack on parents.”
Rowan said that he was “not even going into the Enoch Burke case,” before making a serious and potentially defamatory claim about Mr. Burke.
When the woman attempted to come back, she was told to take it up with BeLongTo directly, and that Rowan was “going to stop that one”, seemingly in reference to her questions.
The woman was told that she had taken up too much time before two other short questions were asked and the session ended.
QUESTIONS TO REVENUE/BELONGTO
Last Thursday, Gript contacted Revenue with a number of questions related to the webinar. Among them was a query about Rowan’s claim regarding Enoch Burke, and a query about why there had been no apparent attempt by the organisers to walk back Rowan’s statement on Burke given its potentially highly defamatory nature.
Gript also asked Revenue why “entirely accurate reporting of BeLongTo training material for teachers was described as being part of a campaign of “far right groups spreading misinformation.”
Revenue was asked why no attempt was made to correct the claim and whether they believed it was an accurate summary of Gript’s reporting on the matter.
Revenue employs close to 7,000 people, but it is unclear whether all of these will receive the glossary even given the very low participation rate in the webinar.
In an email received by Gript on Monday morning, the Revenue Press Office stated that “Any views, thoughts or opinions expressed by any individual during this event do not represent or are not attributable to the Office of the Revenue Commissioners.”
Revenue did not respond to a Gript query as to whether either the organisations or individuals who deliver the presentations are paid.
We offered multiple opportunities to comment on this article, prior to publication, to both BeLongTo and Chris Rowan but have so far not received any response from either.
Note from Editor: An earlier version of this story outlined the nature of the potentially defamatory claim made about Mr. Burke. However, following a request by representatives of Mr. Burke, the specific nature of the claim has been removed from this story.