I USED to think that there was no more stupid a group of people gathered in one place on a Friday night than in RTE's Studio 1, from which The Late Late Show is broadcast to an increasingly bemused nation. Fuelled by free drink and apparently encouraged to whoop and holler at inappropriate moments, the audiences regularly lend The Late Late Show the feel of an early period Punch and Judy Show. If those who show up at Questions & Answers resemble the nerdiest children in the class, The Late Late Show audiences are the kids with attention deficit disorder.

It seems I was wrong in my belief, however. It may actually be the case that the dumbest people in Ireland on Friday nights are not in RTE but are at home watching The Late Late Show and responding to the on-screen invitations to phone or text in their thoughts. Too mad to get on Liveline, they use the opportunity offered by these invites to share their outrage with the nation. Chief of them all, it would appear, is a man called Muiris.

On 23 May, Pat Kenny interviewed Gene Robinson, the bishop of the American diocese of New Hampshire. Robinson is gay, and his election as bishop in 2003 caused immense controversy, which is still raging, in the Anglican church worldwide.

Robinson was married in his younger years, and had children, but the marriage soon collapsed. He is now in a relationship with a man, and on good terms with his former wife and children.

About nine minutes into Robinson's interview with Pat Kenny, the comments started to scroll across the screen. One viewer called Jackie came up with the old cliche (although I'm sure she or he thought it terrifically clever) about God having created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. She or he predicted that Robinson would not make it to heaven.

The comment that really jumped off the screen was from a man called Muiris. "This bishop abandoned his wife and children for his own selfish needs, " Muiris commented. "He should be ashamed of himself. It's a disgrace."

That last sentence immediately rang a bell and, thanks to the old interweb, it didn't take long to find out why. On the previous Friday's show, Pat Kenny had covered an item on euthanasia, which featured a doctor from the Netherlands who has regularly helped terminally ill patients die a peaceful and painless death. Once again, viewers had been asked to send in their comments, and once again, some responded."Who decided that the Dutch doctor should play god?"

raged one viewer. "It's an absolute disgrace." It was Muiris again.

Assuming that Muiris exists, and that he has not been invented by RTE for use on nights when viewers are too temperate in their comments, it seems obvious that he is one angry man, the kind who sees disgrace around every corner, and would be disappointed if he didn't. You can kind of picture him, sitting in front of his television, phone at the ready, waiting to be outraged by somebody whose views or lifestyle do not fit in with his strictly conservative view of life.

What he'll do, now that The Late Late Show has finished for the summer, is anybody's guess, but if I was working for Joe Duffy, I'd start screening my calls.

There has to be a very good chance that Muiris will be voting no in the Lisbon treaty referendum.

His apparent belief that the country and the world is in a shocking state, about to be taken over by liberals and their abortionloving, homosexual ways, make him a prime target for the campaign that has been run by some of the battier elements in the No camp.

In many ways, these people have set the agenda on the 'no' side.

Their simplistic madness has given them an attraction for media who want to cover the Lisbon campaign, but who are wary about inflicting mind-numbing detail on their readers or viewers. 'Pro-lifers', conservatives and right-wing wackos who are using the Lisbon campaign to fight old battles (some of which they have already lost) at least have the virtue of being an easily understood black-and-white presence in a multi-faceted and complicated debate. There can be no other reason that an organisation such as Coir, which majors in falsehoods, has been given so much airtime (Morning Ireland on Friday being the latest opportunity) to peddle its misinformation.

I know some people have decided to vote yes because they do not want to be associated in any way with the likes of Coir and their fellow travellers. That's an understandable position. Who wants to be on the same side as people who are so wrong so often, and for whom scaremongering is a key tactic?

The problem with that argument is that there has been just as much scaremongering, though of a different kind, going on in the 'yes' campaign. Where Coir or Libertas will tell you that your children will either be tagged or removed to detention centres if we vote yes, people in Grianna Fail promise "disaster" for Ireland (stand up, Bertie Ahern) or "chaos" for Europe and damage to Ireland (take a bow, Eamon Ryan) if we vote no. Elements on both sides are treating voters with unprecedented contempt and deserve equal condemnation.

It has been a terrible and wearying campaign, and with 11 days to go until we can vote, it has the potential to get worse. But we do have one option open to us which would reflect our anger at both campaigns, and that is not to vote at all.

In other circumstances, abstention might be seen as the act of an apathetic person, somebody who has neither the intelligence nor wit to engage with how his country is governed. This time around, however, staying at home could easily be presented as the independent act of an intelligent person sick to the soul of being shouted at or patronised. If neither side deserves to enjoy the sweet smell of success on 12 June, and if our children and our country will be safe whatever the outcome (which they will), there seems little point in engaging further in this debate.

By not voting, we cast a plague on both houses and strike a blow for intelligent debate.