If you are not familiar with an organisation called “Christian Voice Ireland”, then you can hardly be blamed. Ireland has not traditionally been a hotspot of evangelical christianity, at least on this side of the border, so prominent evangelical groups are few and far between. That is changing, though, at least in part as a result of immigration.

There’s irony in that: If you want to find Ireland’s most diverse and multicultural communities, you could do worse than look at the evangelical churches that have been springing up in recent years. The Church at the centre of this week’s “scandal” – more of which in a second – is lead by Pastor John Aherne and his wife Joanna. Their congregation has many “native” Irish people, but it is also filled every week by a large contingent of people born in Africa, South America, and the far east. These people, from different backgrounds and cultures, have nevertheless formed a shared Christian community in Ireland. It’s the kind of thing you’d think would be welcomed.

And it probably was welcomed, until the uppity congregation stopped simply posing for feel-good photos, and started having opinions.

People in that congregation, apparently, have concerns about the new sex education curriculums being rolled out in Irish schools. This week, they held the second of two public information evenings on those curriculums, at which parents were advised to exercise their constitutional right to be involved in their child’s education, and to participate in the democratic process by making their feelings known. Some speakers, from the podium, even articulated a traditionally Christian view of sexual ethics.