Objective Rental Standards

Protecting Our Masonic Temples

Well, golly, the Grand Lodge of Ireland has gotten itself into a terrible mess.¹

They have accidentally waded into politics, and their efforts to swim out of those non-Masonic waters have only pushed them deeper into political controversy.²

Not good for an organization that prides itself on being non-political, and that indeed holds that stance as a Landmark.

But, as mentioned above, it was an accident.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

It was an accident clearly caused by the fact that the Grand Lodge of Ireland utilizes subjective rather than objective criteria to judge potential renters of the Freemason’s Hall in Dublin.

Had objective standards been in place, the scandal would have not happened.

The story, as I understand it, in a nutshell:

A media company contacted the Grand Lodge and asked to rent the facility as the location for an interview. The Grand Lodge didn’t know who was to be interviewed, or who would be doing the interviewing. They chatted about it, and decided to rent the building to the media company. They learned who would be involved shortly before the interview took place, discussed it again, and decided to move ahead with the rental as planned.

It turned out that the interviewee was Conor McGregor and the interviewer was Tucker Carlson.

That made the left wing activist class freak out.³ The Freemasons, who are always good scapegoat fodder anyway, suddenly looked to be supporting right wing political figures.

And, honestly, that is understandable to a point. The Grand Lodge discussed it and decided to host these two men from the right. It is understandable that some, who don’t understand how Freemasonry works, would see in that support for the right wing. It could certainly appear to some that the Freemasons were wading into politics.

Discovering this reaction, the Grand Lodge again acted subjectively. It apologized, declared that it should not have hosted these men, and that it would donate the rental fee received to charity.

I can’t imagine a much better way to make the right wing activist class freak out than to imply that these two extremely popular men are so far beyond the pale as to be unworthy of being hosted.

So, for a second time, it could appear that the Freemasons were diving into political waters. They got to anger the left and the right, all for apparently a thousand or two bucks. All because objective facts and standards were pushed aside for subjective feelings when decisions were being made.

The quick Public Relations lesson to learn from this is that when you are in a hole, stop digging until you figure out a proper response.

But there is a much bigger, and much more important lesson that those who manage Masonic buildings all over the world can learn.

That is to hold only objective rental standards when renting a building to non-Masons and non-Masonic groups.

Subjective standards can get us into trouble. Objective standards can get us out of it.

We need to set clear standards when we look to host outside rentals. Standards, one, two, three, and down the line. If an individual or organization meets those standards, whatever they might be, they can rent our facility. If they don’t meet those standards, they cannot.

Easy. The only decision that has to be made is a determination about the standards being met. No judgement, no grey areas, no close calls.

Had the Grand Lodge held objective standards it’s response could have been a long the lines of: ‘These are our rental standards, the organization met them, so according to our long-standing rules we had no criteria by which we could have said no to the rental.’ Had that been the case, the scandal would have never reached the point it did.

Better yet, had the Grand Lodge included a ‘no politics’ standard, the response would have been even easier: ‘These are our rental standards, the organization lied to us because they agreed, in writing, to uphold them.’ Had that been the case, there wouldn’t have been even the hint of scandal.

This is why all Masonic building management organizations need to develop, and enforce clear and objective standards for outside rentals of our facilities.

What we can’t have are just some guys, sitting around, deciding on a case by case basis if the facility should be rented to this organization or that, all based on gut feelings and hunches. That does nothing but beg for scandal where none truly exists.

Certainly the Grand Lodge has no wish whatsoever to become embroiled in the political divisions of the moment. But subjective decision-making has done just that in this instance.

We all do very well to learn from this sad situation.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/apr/21/ireland-freemasons-apologise-hosting-conor-mcgregor-interview-tucker-carlson

2. Thank you to my great friend and Brother, Cameron from Canada for alerting me to this story!

https://x.com/CameronAdamso16

3. For clarity I’m using the flawed but common U.S. political spectrum terms here. I understand that there are flaws with this labeling system, and that it varies in other countries. I’m using it because it is what most of us who read Emeth are most familiar with.