Gay independent senator David Norris in in the lead for the Irish presidency, a poll of the public says.

According to an Ipsos MRBI/Irish Times poll of 1,000 people, Mr Norris has 25 per cent of the vote.

Fine Gael candidate Gay Mitchell was on 21 per cent and Labour’s Michael D Higgins was on 18 per cent.

So it would seem that the rest of the world is moving on, and the U.S., sadly, is stuck in the 1950s.