Regular readers of this publication are perhaps familiar with The Irish Times and their agony aunt Trish Murphy following Fatima Gunning’s previous scathing assessment of both the columnist Murphy and the Irish Times itself.
Some may remember the rather ridiculous agony aunt submission in which a married mother of two suddenly came to the realisation that she was in fact a gay man trapped in a woman’s body.
Agony Aunt Murphy then chimes in with the sound advice of shipping the family off to TENI (the Transgender Equality Network Ireland) to seek ‘support’, (or as I prefer the term when it comes to TENI, indoctrination, but, tomayto, tomato), while the woman begins her ‘transition’ to identifying as a man. Yeah, comedy gold, I know.
Well it seems Murphy is back with a bang with more comedic progressive problem solving. But, what is the problem this time, you ask?
Well it seems some poor Irish mother received quite a shock while on her family holly-bops. She discovered, to her horror, that her 16 year old son has, wait for it, ‘right wing views’. Now, not just any right wing views, but ‘abhorrent right wing views’. The poor woman, what ever will she do?
Maybe we here at Gript can help this poor distressed mother ourselves by analyzing her submission and perhaps we could even help Murphy advise her readership better should any other mothers find themselves with an abhorrent right winger for a son.
So, to look at the mother’s letter in detail we learn that according to her son’s teachers he has been ‘unfriendly towards boys in his school who identified as gay bisexual or trans’. Well, the first thing I notice here is the use of the term ‘identify’ when mentioning the gay or bisexual schoolmates. I was under the illusion that people didn’t ‘identify’ as gay or bisexual but simply were born gay or bisexual. But maybe I am wrong.
Now the transgender identifying schoolmates are a different matter. If one is to subscribe to transgender ideology and logic, I would imagine it’s pretty odd having a number of ‘girls’ (yes, ‘girls’ in quotation marks) running around in an all-boys school. I can quite easily understand her son’s confusion on this matter. I wonder do they have tampon dispensers in the lad’s bathroom’s like they do in Dail Eireann? I’d love to ask him.
Anyway, young 16-year-old Chad as I have decided to call this lady’s son for the sake of this article, says he has ‘nothing against LGBTQ people but there were just some people in his school who he didn’t like because of their personalities and not because of their sexuality or gender’. Sounds fair to me, but then again, my mother did accidentally raise an abhorrent right winger herself, so what do I know?
Like a clucking mother hen, the concerned mother proceeds to inform Murphy that she had ‘spent a lot of time talking with him (the son) about bullying and the importance of inclusivity’. This sounds patronizing to me and seems to suggest a rather ridiculous notion that his dislike of a person’s personality constitutes bullying and must be rectified immediately through the all-powerful doctrine of ‘inclusivity’.
As we progress further through this mother’s tale of woe, we learn that Chad also has ‘differing views regarding the rights of immigrants and refugees to be in this country’. This differing view ‘horrified’ his parents, alongside his ‘abhorrent comments on social media’.
Now, this is a topic I am sure I can help this mother better understand. Perhaps she is unaware that currently Ireland is suffering through a dreadful housing shortage, and I suspect young Chad is acutely aware that this housing shortage is likely to affect him when he attempts to find accommodation when he leaves for college in the not-too-distant future.
Moreover, the latest figures from Eurostat regarding the housing situation for 25–29 year old’s in Ireland highlighted that 68% of this age group are currently still living with their parents. This figure is nearly 26 per cent higher than the EU average of 42.1 so let’s say a prayer for poor Chad as it looks highly likely that he will be stuck in his mother’s house for quite some time
To conclude this mother’s appeal for help and advice from Murphy, she worries that she and her husband ‘do not know if [they] can tolerate this mindset and the risk that it poses to [their] other children’. This seems strangely reminiscent of the Simpson’s character Helen Lovejoy and her consistent appeal for someone to ‘please think of the children’. Oh, how the times have changed.
Now to examine Agony Aunt Murphy’s response. Murphy, with a cheap shot towards Chad, wonders why he ‘feels so insecure that he needs to negate other people’. I find this a strawman-like response. There is zero reason to believe Chad feels insecure (except perhaps financially, considering the housing situation poor Chad is soon to find himself in) and I see no indication that Chad has been negating anything or anyone.
Murphy then goes on to wonder could it be some deep seated uncomfortability with Chad’s ‘own sexuality and gender’. Now, please remember this is coming from an agony aunt who advised the mother of two toddlers mentioned earlier to transition herself into a man and expect that her husband and children will be just fine and dandy with it all and advocates ‘open marriages’ as a feasible and legitimate form of partnership.
She continues and suggests counseling and professional help may be required ‘in the task ahead’ (I’d like to advise some professional help for Murphy too, to be honest) and that Helen Lovejoy ‘may have to take away his Internet connections and smartphone’ to prevent him from posting again on divisive political or cultural issues or researching ‘right-wing material’.
So, simple censorship should help curtail his thinking according to Murphy. I wonder how censorship fits in with a house of self-proclaimed ‘free thinkers’.
Now, to ensure that Chad is not simply punished or censored into a better, more progressive way of thinking, Murphy suggests a healthy dose of coercion, stating ‘you should reward any good behavior with lots of attention and approval’.
Murphy is even brazen enough to conclude with a list of psychologist and psychotherapists who may be able to professionally address the 16 year old’s way of thinking. Murphy signs off, stating, ‘clarity on the unacceptability of his continuing behavior is needed…but also you need to portray your genuine concern and belief that this is not his core self’’, At least Murphy still believes there is hope for young Chad and that he may still relinquish his ‘abhorrent’ right wing views with the right ‘support’.
Much like Fatima Gunning concluded in the past, it is indeed time for both Trish Murphy and The Irish Times to get ‘a healthy dose of reality’, but also in this case to better understand what free thinking truly means, to better appreciate what the toleration of different opinions actually looks like and that punishment, censorship and coercion are not democratic techniques and thusly have no place in a democratic society that values free speech.
Sources:
- Fatima Gunning Article: https://gript.ie/irish-times-encourages-mother-to-live-as-gay-man-is-this-the-worst-advice-ever/
- Trish Murphy Article re 16-year-old son: https://www.irishtimes.com/health/your-wellness/2023/08/16/im-worried-about-my-16-year-old-son-and-his-right-wing-views/
- Eurostat figures via the Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2023/08/15/more-than-two-thirds-of-young-adults-in-ireland-still-living-with-parents-figures-show/#:~:text=Some%2073.9%20per%20cent%20of,and%2036%20per%20cent%2C%20respectively.
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