I’d also get behind putting Senator Norris in the Aras! Seriously, I’d love to see him there, establishing that we have a progressive voting population and recognising his pedigree in human rights campaigning.
Nice man, but he doesn’t have the gravitas to be President.
It may be a piss-take position, but it has some important roles, including going abroad to meet with other Heads of State.
I can’t find the picture of him dancing in Temple Bar with two transvestites, but this will do for now.
He’s good fun, but he would be our Boris Yeltsin, making masturbation jokes at important events, and joking that he caught his hepatitis from a sandwich.
I have to say I disagree. Yeah he’s done some, what some may call embarrasing things, but I don’t think he’d do anything like that as Pres. Did you see his Late Late appearance recently. He is taking it very seriously and he’s no Boris Yelsin.
Tbh, I have seen him talk seriously, so I know he can, but I can just see him going off on a mad rant on the Israel-Palestine situation or some other sensitive issue (although McAleese’s ‘Nazi’ comment wasn’t great in fairness).
I felt genuinely embaressed by Bertie’s Canary Yellow trousers, I can just see a Norris term being seven years of international humiliation.
I also didn’t appreciate his support for Cathal O’Searcaigh.
I think it was the night they did the Gerry Ryan memorial thing with Gay, Pat and the rest. If not that night it was the next week as they talked about Gerry at the beginning of the interview.
There were any number of kings who would identify as “gay” (closeted or not) in today’s social environment. Times being what they were when they lived, they took wives, usually foreign princesses in marital alliances, as Queens and dutifully fathered heirs (and so might be termed bisexual), but their sexual preference was evidently gay. William II Rufus and Edward II of England come quickly to mind; there are allegations that Richard II also was, which I think are not supportable, and that James VI of Scots and I of England was, on substantially more solid footing. Frederick II of Prussia and Gustavus III of Sweden are non-British examples. The Roman Empire had a few: Hadrian and Elagalus (Heliogabalus) were two, and Nero was bisexual.
Not quite what’s sought after here, but the Carlist Rebellion in Spain has a tie as well – it ws an open secret that Queen Isabella II’s cousin and consort Don Francisco de Asis slept with men while the Queen slept with other men, meaning her heir Alfonso XII and her four other surviving children (out of 12 she bore) were all illegitimate, and she should be succeeded by her uncle Carlos and his heirs, legitimate Borbons (Spanish spelling of the House of Bourbon). The legal fiction of Francisco being father to her children meant inheritance could pass through both of them and remain in the Borbon line, preserving Salic-Law inheritance in the ruling house. But with it being public knowledge that Isabella’s children were not his, that meant the heir to Spain’s throne was the son of the Captain of the Guard, Borbon only through his mother, which didn’t count for Salic inheritance. While both Francisco and Isabella would have preferred that penis ensued, whad did in fact ensue was warfare, a revolt by the legitimists.
Of course, Jóhanna is Iceland’s head of government, not head of state. Iceland’s head of state is the president, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who is married to a woman named Dorrit Moussaieff.
As Polycarp points out, there have been any number of gay monarchs over history, some of them quite frank about it. Jóhanna is probably the highest-ranked openly LGBT person of modern (say, post-1900) period, however.
Incidentally, Jóhanna and her long-time partner just became among the first to legally marry in Iceland, after their parliament unanimously passed same-sex marriage.
The first to come to mind was James Buchanan, the 15th president of the United States. He had a close personal relationship with Alabama senator William Rufus King, close enough that Andrew Jackson referred to King as “Miss Nancy” and “Aunt Fancy”, while Aaron Brown called the pair “Buchanan and his wife”.
My David Norris story relates to the one time I’ve visited the Oireachtas in Leinster House, donkeys years ago. A bunch of us foreigners turned up at the gate and were duly directed to the viewing gallery in the Dáil. Not a thrilling debate - about fishery policy - but on the way out the security guard recognised that we’d put in more than a token visit and, in recognition of our interest, got us into the Senate. The surprise then was that the Irish Senate is a very intimate chamber, with visitors in close proximity to the members. I thus found myself sitting in a chair - and it was a nice chair, but it was just part of a row of them plonked on the side of the fairly small room in order to accomodate any observers - right behind Norris. And as a Joyce fan I did recognise who he was.
I simply don’t recall what the debate was about. But he launched into some complicated procedural point that involved a lengthy exchange with the chair. That lost, he simply put his Walkman headphones on and pointedly ignored the remainder of the debate while remaining in his seat. A rather well done bit of parliamentarian theatrics.
