David Quinn is an Irish social and religious commentator. From 1996 to 2003 he was the editor at The Irish Catholic. He served as the religious and social affairs correspondent for the Irish Independent from 2003 to 2005. He has often appeared on Irish current affairs programmes. Since 2007, Quinn has been the Director of the Iona Instituteadvocacy group. Quinn has campaigned against the liberalisation of Irish abortion laws, the introduction of same-sex marriage and the legalisation of assisted suicide. He is a member of the Dublin branch of Legatus, which promotes Catholic values in corporate business, for those who meet stringent qualification criteria. He was educated at St Paul's College, Raheny and studied at NIHE Dublin, graduating with a degree in Business Studies. He is also a regular contributor to the Irish edition of The Sunday Times.
Activities
Iona Institute
In January 2007 Quinn founded the Iona Institute, a Roman Catholic advocacy group promoting families based on traditional marriage and the practice of religion. He is the current Director of the Iona Institute.
David Quinn has campaigned against the legalisation of euthanasia.
LGBT rights
Quinn has spoken in favour of Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act, which allows religious schools to discriminate, and fire employees who don't match their ethos, which can be used to fire gay teachers in Catholic schools, with the Iona Institute recommending that it be kept. He is opposed to Ireland's Gender Recognition Act for transgender people. In 2010, he was opposed to legal recognition of same-sex in the form of civil partnerships. He campaigned unsuccessfully for a No vote in the 2015 same-sex marriage referendum In the course of the referendum campaign, Professor John A. Murphy, an Irish historian and former member of Seanad Éireann, wrote to The Irish Times. In his letter, he described the constitutional amendment, which permitted same-sex marriage and extended constitutional protection to families based on such marriages, as "grotesque nonsense.". Following this, Mr Quinn tweeted "Proposed change to marriage "grotesque nonsense"... Great letter by Prof John A Murphy in @IrishTimes today #MarRef". Mr Quinn was criticised for this Tweet by drag queen and gay rights activistRory O'Neill, who wrote: "I can think of lots of things that are grotesque. Extending constitutional protection to all families is not one of them... I would call it 'fair', 'reasonable', 'compassionate', 'considerate', 'respectful', or even 'the very least we can do'. But not 'grotesque'."
