David Norris

David Patrick Bernard Norris (born 31 July 1944) is an Irish scholar, independent Senator, and gay and civil rights activist. In 2011, David Norris was forced to withdraw from the campaign for the Irish presidency before coming back into the race a few months later. An Irish journalist had accused him of condoning pedophilia because of remarks on "Greek pedophilia" and earlier declarations about his attraction towards mature men when he was younger. It was later revealed that Norris had also appealed for clemency over the conviction of his former lover who had had sex with a 15-year-old boy. The news came as a shock, for David Norris was a respectable member of the Irish senate, a Joyce scholar from Trinity College and one of Ireland’s most prominent gay liberationists, who has taken his country’s policy on same-sex intercourses to the European Court of Human Rights and won.