A CHART OF words frequently used on Catholic group The Iona Institute’s website has been making the rounds today.

It was put together by Ciarain Reilly and was widely shared after being tweeted out this morning by Panti Bliss:

It shows the words ‘gay’ and ‘same-sex’ are considerably more prominent on the site than others like ‘poverty’, ‘addiction’ or ‘depression’.

After being contacted by TheJournal.ie about the chart, The Iona Institute released their own, which shows words like ‘marriage’ and ‘religion’ are far more widely used, in keeping with their ethos.

Though the figures in the first chart are correct, spokesperson Ben Conroy described it as “extremely selective in terms of what it choose to compare us with in terms of areas of interest”.

The Iona Institute is interested in the areas of religion and marriage – so what if we try to put in some more relevant search queries? How many results do we get then?

“The Iona Institute is an organisation promoting the place of marriage and religion in society,” Conroy explained. “We have a particular remit and we talk about things within that remit.”

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He also pointed out that the word ‘unemployment’ is only mentioned seven times on the Marriage Equality website.

“We can play games all day with this – or we could get back to the debate.”