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# Pantigate
Panti: Call me anything under the sun, I won’t be running to my lawyer’s skirts
In an interview with Channel 4 this evening, the drag queen said it was painful to be told his relationships were worth less.
http://youtu.be/1K7GXzyJchE
(Video: Channel 4 News/YouTube)
PANTIGATE, AS IT has now been dubbed, has spread across the water, with Channel 4 News following the BBC‘s lead by playing a segment of the powerful speech by Rory O’Neill, also known as drag queen Panti, on homophobia in Ireland.
In an interview with Channel 4 this evening, Panti said “people understand there are degrees of evil in the world”, with gay people in every country facing discrimination on different scales, whether its a question of marriage equality or extreme violence against them.
“Many, many people have told me over the last few weeks that I am totally not entitled to call somebody hompophobic – that has been thrown at me many, many, many times.”
She said she has been accused “somehow trying to shut down the debate and stop them from expressing their sincerely held beliefs “.
“Of course I am not doing anything of the sort,” the drag queen said.
“You are perfectly free to call me anything under the sun,” she joked. “I will not be running to my solicitor’s skirts and trying to shut you up”.
Panti told the news presenter that it was “painful” to be told your relationship is worth less and this “feeds into the general culture”.
We are constantly forced to check ourselves and not be as gay as we might want to be.
When asked if she was a ‘heterophobe’, she replied:
“I love heterosexual people, if there weren’t heterosexual people I wouldn’t have boys to fancy. ”
The video of Panti’s speech has now been viewed on YouTube more than 365,000 times.
Read: RTÉ stands by its account of Panti events, says Waters’ apology was ‘unacceptable’>
Read: ‘Beaten, spat, chased, harassed and mocked’: TDs open-up about homophobic abuse>
