Priest likens being gay to having a disability as he…

Priest likens being gay to having a disability as he clashes with Joe Duffy on RTE Liveline show

RTE presenter Joe Duffy got into a shouting match with the priest at the centre of a scandal about his sermon during an extraordinary episode of Liveline on RTÉ radio.

Father Sean Sheehy continued to double down on his original comments that Ireland was full of "rampant sin" and that transgenderim was "lunacy"

The clergyman has been removed from mass schedules after his bizarre rant over the weekend in Listowel.

Having said that politicians like Leo Varadkar were "going to hell" on Radio Kerry before arguing with Bryan Dobson earlier on Wednesday, Fr Sheehy appeared on Liveline in the afternoon for over an hour.

During one heated moment, Joe exclaimed: "So we're all stupid and you're intelligent?" while Fr Sheehy was shouting "listen to me" repeatedly.

But as he was being tackled on his views by one caller, Seán turned his crosshairs back onto Joe, fuming: "You come across as a bias and a self-rigtheous attitude. You're not even a good reporter because you're not fair to both sides and you lie. You're pathetic Joe. You're pitiful and pathetic. Goodbye."

Earlier in the episode, Joe had asked Fr Sheehy: "The referendums that took place in this country over the last 10 years on contraception, divorce, abortion and gay marriage, they were all fixed?"

The priest replied: "Absolutely, guaranteed there was an agenda, even the way the ballots were written. The groups were stacked with people who are pro those things and had their own agenda; they didn’t really bring in the people on the opposite side at all to give their opinions.

"The result actually was of people who were completely misinformed. You had people in America who actually paid people’s fare to come to Ireland to vote in favour of abortion.

"You had an agenda that was really being pushed and the sad point about it is that the hierarchy was mute: they never educated the people at all.

"I believe a lot of those votes were misled. People actually have said to me that they actually voted ‘Yes’ thinking that the yes was to keep the amendment.

"The national media had its own agenda, my agenda is that of the Scriptures and the teachings of the church."

Fr Sheehy was then asked by Joe whether he believed homosexuality to be a disability

He replied: "Well it is a disability because it leans a person in an abnormal direction in terms of expressing sexuality.

"Telling little boys, they can become girls and telling little girls they can become boys, that is lunacy, that’s insanity."

One caller blasted Fr Sheehy's words as "nonsense" saying that Kerry was "moving forward" and that Fr Sheehy was "the last cries of a dying mindset".