Former Presidential candidate David NorrisGoogle Images
New evidence shows that former Presidential candidate Senator David Norris’ staff did not resign last weekend over the fact that he had written a letter pleading clemency, for his boyfriend who had raped a minor, rather over the controversial views he expressed on underage sex.
The Sunday Times and the Mail on Sunday both reports that the members of his campaign staff who quit last weekend, before he withdrew from the race, did so due to the “more controversial views on underage sex”.
Fourteen years ago Norris wrote a letter pleading clemency for his boyfriend Ezra Nawi who was convicted of statutory rape of a minor in Israel. Nawi served three months in prison.
This weekend the Sunday Times quoted on of Norris’ former campaign team. They said “There was a lot of surprise among the team last Sunday when they read the letters he’d released as they weren’t the ones that caused people to resign.
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“He released the safest letters to be published. The ones that made people angry included stuff that wasn’t appropriate. It was stuff similar to what had been in the Helen Lucy Burke interview – more controversial views on underage sex.”
The Mail on Sunday uncovered the minutes of the first meeting of the Union for Sexual Freedom in the National Library of Ireland on May 10, 1975. The minutes stated “David said as a child it had been his greatest desire to be molested so he, more than most people, knows the rarity of the homosexual child molester.”
The newspaper also mentions Norris’ support for a pro-pedophile organization in the 1980s called the Paedophile Information Exchange. Norris was a founding member of the International Gay Association in the 1980s and passed two motions.
“One called for the abolition of the age of consent, whilst the second called for an international solidarity campaign on behalf of the Paedophile Information Exchange.
“At the time of the letter, members of exchange were being prosecuted for ‘conspiracy to corrupt public morals’ over ads that appeared in a magazine that were alleged to have promoted indecent acts between adults and children.”
The report continues “One letter [from the International Gay Association] seeking support for the exchange, dated May 13, 1981, said: ‘PIE is an organization set up in the ‘70s with two aims: to provide a counseling and support service for isolated paedophiles, and to campaign against the legal and social oppression of paedophilia”.