In February Middleton Grange School in Christchurch, hired a 28 year-old guy to coach their girl's netball team (footnote: a male coaching a female sport like netball was surely a warning sign in itself?)
In case you are not from Christchurch, Middleton Grange is open to Christian children ONLY.
But mind-you - not just any Christian brats qualify - no siree.
Oh no, according to the righteous God-fearing folk who run Middleton Grange - Catholic’s need not apply.
Don’t even ask if your spawn happens to be an Atheist, Hindu or one of the other heathens doomed to ultimately burn in hells flames.
So back to the matter in hand - as it turns-out the part-time Netball Coach happens to be gay, and this touchy-fact gets back to The School Board.
As you would appreciate all Christians hate homos, and New Zealand is no exception to backward bigotry. Nothing gets a Christian zealot more worked-up than man on man sex and people spilling their seed for the fun of it.
The School Board at Middleton Grange was faced with the terrible realisation of having released a real-life sodomite onto its hallowed-grounds.
Their romper-festooned virgins needed protection from this inherently sinful man (not in a Biblical sense of the term of the word ‘man’)
So they simply fired him.
The coach departs to another school and subsequently complains to the Human Rights Department who rightfully demand that the School apologies. Middleton Grange also ended-up paying him reparations.
What is rather ironic in this whole affair is how on one-hand The New Zealand Government sees sexual discrimination as a crime worthy of admonishment, and yet in the next breath it is happy to allow Schools like Middleton Grange to openly discriminate based on a child’s beliefs?
In the past religions have had a free-reign in New Zealand to get away with abuses no other sector of society can claim as part of their innate rights being a citizen of this country.
The right to discriminate based-on gender or sexual orientation are two of the more obvious ones still permitted.
Gradually these historic ‘rights’ Governments have granted to one sector of society over another, are being whittled away.
This week New Zealand took another step towards becoming a truly secular country when it banned the inhumane slaughter of animals under the guise of religious practice.
Overnight the Kosher slaughter of lambs and chickens (a ritual called shechita) came to an end here in New Zealand and attracted the ire of the local Hebrew community both here and in Australia.
The president of The Organisation of Rabbis in Australasia, Moshe Gutnick, put all his cards on the table when he said “The science is wrong, but even if the science wasn’t wrong it infringes on the religious rights of the community.”
Basically Rabbi Gutnick was saying “So what it’s cruel - our religion dictates we treat animals in this primitive fashion and that over-rides the rule of the land.”
Gutnick and the Jewish community of New Zealand can of course import Kosher meat, or if they are still smarting from having to follow the same animal welfare laws as the rest of the country – simply go live some where else.
If you think New Zealand is intolerant - try Iran for size.
Footnote: Before anyone plays the “what about the animals killed in New Zealand slaughterhouses under the halal principals?” card, those animals are stunned first – unlike the Kosher killings where the conscious animal has it’s throat slit and bleed.
Imagine, as sickening as the proposition is, betrothing your own two year-old daughter to a forty year-old?
Then at 9 years-old you allow your daughter to ‘shack-up’ with her fiancé.
At 11 she is formally married and then consummation takes place.
She gives birth at 12 years-old.
As abhorrent as this scenario sounds, what has been outlined is the ‘norm’, and it is permissible under Islamic law in the following countries - that’s to say young-girls getting married and having sexual relations with their husbands, who are often decades older:
- Afghanistan - Bahrain - Iran - Kuwait - Nigeria - Oman - Pakistan - Saudi Arabia - United Arab Emirates - Yemen
Girls are seen as objects in these countries, chattels for their fathers to dispose-of like cattle.
Kiwi’s would rather worry about whales and native-bush, conveniently turn a blind-eye to the oil-producers, rather than standing-up for what should be basic civilised human-rights for the female population in The Middle East and Africa.
New Zealanders and their allies are spilling-blood in Afghanistan for a turpitude, corrupt regime that has enshrined in it’s statute-books a carte-blanche for men to fuck girls – using the excuse “they are married in the eyes of our God and his book”
We are happy to sell meat to feed the faces of what in its lowest denominator are child-rapists.
Tut, tut silly old-me mentioning civilization and Islam in the same paragraph.
Footnote(s):
- All these very same countries ban homosexuality and imprison and torture anyone caught engaging-in male/male sex. - Not to be outdone, the age of consent in that bastion of propriety, The Vatican City, is set at just 12 years-old. - At 54 y.o, Islam’s prophet married one of his wives when she was a mere 6 year-old and began sexual relations with her just three years later. Thus the religious enshrinement that has lead to its practice in 2010. - Some of these countries do set a minimum age for marriage – most frequently its nine years-old and nothing less than thirteen. - In Nigeria a senator & state governor in their Government paid a dowry for a 12 year-old Egyptian girl who he whisked back-home and married a year later.
From the outset let’s get this straight - the term ‘inter-faith’ is nothing of the sort.
The term is an oxymoron.
The fact Governments see the necessity to coerce the different religions around the one table in the first-place, is indicative enough of the fact ‘inter-faith’ is nothing but a shame & a total waste of tax-payers money (although great for MP’s frequent-flyer points)
No talk feast will ever change the theological chasm that separates religions as diverse, weird & wonderful as Scientology and Jesus Christ and The Later Day Saints.
Yes people, the New Zealand Government sees fit to invite even the followers of the intergalactic war-lord Xenu over for a chat-over tea and biscuits.
Politicians appear to be oblivious to the fact that every religious representative that sits down at that table in so-called ‘dialogue’ thinks they are right and the individual person next to them is totally wrong, and unless they come around to their way of thinking are doomed to some retribution in the afterlife.
Have they not observed Churches around the globe going out of their way to ignore human rights?
Shooting and bombing each other out of existence.
Do they not know ‘The War on Terror’ is but a politically-correct wank-term for a ‘War on Radical Religion’?
In a grand irony it is these very same Governments that organise these inter-faith bitch-sessions are the same-ones that go out of their way to pander to the varying superstitions, allowing them to engage in behaviour normally labeled sexist or homophobic under the guise of their beliefs, even supporting them to develop their own divisive schooling-systems which perpetrate the very issues these inter-faith meetings want to address.
So it is Governments themselves that have the power and tools to rid themselves of this perpetual war of beliefs that has spilt-over into secular life and now threatens us all.
Wiping-out religious privilege is the only cure – not talk-feasts in 5 star-hotels.
To take stock of the endemic level of bureaucratic brown-nosing when it comes to superstitious-entities, what better example than looking-at what our last Minister of so-called ‘Ethnic Affairs’ got up-to.
Between February and September last year as MP for that portfolio, Chris Carter attended in an official capacity the following long-list of pointless mumbo-jumbo meetings on behalf of you and me.
As a matter of public-safety I hope our very own ‘Captain Scarlett’ Chris Carter wore his public-service issue shiny tin-foil-hat to all of these equivalents of ‘entrails-throwing under a full-moon’ to protect him from the harmful-rays The Mysterons keep shooting at us from their base on Mars.
Frankly belief in concept of a race of little-green men (with/without puppet strings)on Mars has more credibility than ‘The Birth of Baba Deep Singh’.
So why do we pander to this farcical political-correct cobblers?
Birth of Baba Deep Singh Celebration Chinese Consulate Chinese New Year Celebration (3 of these in-fact) International Mother Language and Martyrs Day Celebrations Meeting with NZ Buddhist Council Year of the Rat New Year Festival National Interfaith Forum Dinner with Sikh Community Leaders Holi Celebrations International Convention on Basava Philosophy Ministerial Meeting on Immigration Policy and Faith Leaders Norouz Celebrations Opening of Shree Dham Swaminarayan Temple Takanini Gurdwara 3rd Anniversary Visit to Jam Tse Dhargyey Ling Buddhist Centre, Kamo 2008 Buddha’s Day Multicultural Festival, Auckland Fourth Asia-Pacific Regional Dialogue on Interfaith Co-operation for Peace and Harmony, Cambodia Meeting with NZ Compassion Buddhist Trust Meeting with Waikato Muslim Association, Hamilton Songkran Festival, Auckland Vaisakhi Celebration at Takanini Sikh Gurdwara 2008 Buddha’s Birthday Ceremony Khalifat Day Celebrations St Dionysius Indian Orthodox Church Fifth Anniversary Visit to Al Madinah School Visit to Zayed College for Girls 2008 Moon Festival Celebrations Meeting with NZ Muslim Association
I have briefly come-out of self-imposed hibernation, to highlight this ridiculous & highly amusing pantomime currently going-on in Wales (when you read the article the term ‘pantomime’ seems to be a perfect description)
The guy in the photo is Welshman, Daniel Jones, who appears for all intents & purposes , to be on his way to a fancy-dress do - dressed as Luke Skywalker.
First appearances can be misleading.
Danny ‘boy’ takes this Jedi Knight thing seriously, and is the self-appointed leader of The Jedi Church of U.K.
Given his lofty status I was hoping to find some confirmation he could use ‘the force’ to move things telepathically, like ripping the clothes-off desirable women without being detected.
But enough of this jest.
The Jedi Church considers itself as a bona-fide religion with a worldwide membership of 500,000. In the 2001 Census, 390,000 Englishmen ticked- the-box saying they were Jedi.
So when Jedi Jones got tossed out of his local Tesco supermarket last-week for wearing his hood, it doesn’t take much to guess his reaction.
He went bleating to the media crying “Religious discrimination”.
In-what was a masterpiece of rebuttal the spokesperson for Tesco, in 50 words of less, had this to say…..
“We would ask Jedi to remove hoods. Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Luke Skywalker all went hoodless without going to the Dark Side.”.
“If Jedi Knights wear their hoods, they may miss our specials”.
But here’s 'the bully'
What happened if Daniel, who by the way also employs the Jedi name Morda Hahol, had of entered the supermarket in a traditional turban or other so-called religious regalia?
Say like this fella, from the Russian Orthodox Church.
Similarly, would supermarket-security descended on a woman wearing Muslim headdress?
To the best of my knowledge Jedi's are not renowned for acts of indiscriminate violence - tubeway attacks, hijackings etc.
Tesco’s have probably dug them-selves a hole on this one, but one major question remains unanswered.
“When he was initially confronted by Tescos staff, why didn’t Morda Hahol simply use his mind control powers?”.
Health Officials in Christchurch, had their pleas, deliberately ignored yesterday.
Rather than stay at home, in isolation, some of the small number of confirmed local carriers, amongst the Samoan community, choose instead, to attend Church.
This utter contempt, for the community as a whole, amongst some religious attendees, also looks to be an on-going issue.
As the Canterbury Medical Officer of Health, Alistair Humphrey, frames it “members of the community had a stronger desire to attend church, when they were feeling unwell”.
With this naive mind-set pervading parishioners, surely it was in the greater communities benefit as a whole, to simply close- down the ‘unnamed’ Church in question, until it was cleared?
Let’s not forget class attendance by a relative of one of these parishioners, resulted in the same authorities closing a class at Burnside High School.
So whilst the Canterbury Health Department feels it is compelled to act in a draconian fashion, when it comes to schools – it is reluctant to tackle exactly the same issue, of mass-contamination, in a religious setting.
Rather than up-set a small number of ignorant carriers of swine flu, who believe in Gods power to heal over that of modern medicine, the local Health Authorities, are happy putting at risk the health and economy of the entire population.
Like the school-class at Burnside High, the Samoan Church currently floating health warnings, should also be closed.
The South Island's only two chimpanzees, will jet off today for their new home in Australia.
But, this is no journey of freedom for Charlie (pictured above, looking a bundle of joy) and Samantha, both imprisoned at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve since 1985.
They are merely swapping the bars and cages of Christchurch, for the bars and cages of Mogo Zoo, in New South Wales.
The arrogant hairless monkeys of Australia, can take their turn demeaning them, athromorphising their characteristics.
Watching them play, eat, fight and fuck.
English-speaking Australian chimps, can continue to employ the wanky names, Charlie and Samantha, their antipodean brothers branded them with.
Not happy with destroying their habitat, slaughtering chimpanzees and great-apes in the wild, the talking bipedal chimps see it as their right to enslave their closest relatives as well.
Charles and Samantha, may well possess the same IQ as a 3 to 4 year old human-chimp, but none of their rights.
Why not be done with completing the dissent of man, by stripping naked some individuals with downs- syndrome, and placing them in a zoo, for our titillation?
Let’s have some Alzheimer’s sufferers as the front-people, on adverts for breakfast-tea.
But until chimpanzees get these things called souls, like their fellow hominidae, who just happen to make the rules on the planet - the hairy chimps are doomed to be treated like shit.
1.) Say you are Christian and persecuted 2.) Solicit support from some patsy group
Congratulations, to Iranian asylum Ali Panah, who was granted refugee status, yesterday.
The thinking-mans refugee.
Don’t just arrive in godzone, with the same old story of ‘political persecution’ back home. The N.Z Refugee Status Appeals Authority, gets to hear that story, all the time, eh mate?
Authorities could also check your claims, that you’d face political persecution if you returned home.
Why not take a different tact, one that is beyond reproach?
Something that can not even, be tested.
A scheme, that will also attract outside support, ramping-up pressure on the Refugee Status Appeals Authority.
That’s it – say you’ve suddenly converted to Christianity!
How easy is that to do?
A quick swat of The Bible, act all sincere, say God told you to come to New Zealand and not to eat for a prolonged period - you are ‘home and hosed’.
At all times keep-up appearances, by remembering that’s your new God and not the old one.
Christians get a hard-time back at home, don’t they Ali, even Kiwi’s know this - how good is that!
And the more publicity your case gets, the less likely it is you’ll be returned to Iran, so make as many headlines as possible. The plan, just got better.
So to ramp-up that publicity, undertake a 53 day hunger-strike, and then get some high-profile naive & well-meaning Kiwi’s on your side.
Go to google and type-in ‘New Zealand, largest religious denomination’ and see what turns-up.
In Christian circles in New Zealand, they don’t get any bigger, than Archbishop David Moxon from The Anglican Church, so you ‘struck gold’ getting him to back you.
Things worked-out nicely, eh buddy.
PS: You would have been on the first plane back to Tehran, if you had have said you were an Atheist. But a bright guy like you, picked-up on that anomaly early-on, one suspects.
Child abuse means, means the harming (whether physically, emotionally or sexually), ill treatment, abuse, neglect or deprivation of any child or young person. [definition of abuse under The Children, Young Persons and their Families Act of 1989]
Here are six scenarios.
Some involve physical or sexual abuse of a child, others psychological.
Using your own scale - kindly, rank-them from the worst (#1) to the least worst (#6).
1.) A toddler attempts to run across a busy road in front of traffic, in the heat of the moment the mother restraints the youngster & adrenaline still pumping smacks the her child’s bottom and tells him “You are never to do that again, you naughty boy”. 2.) The father of a ten year old girl, starts molesting her. 3.) A mother tells her 5 year old, his father is ‘evil’ and he can never see him. 4.) Parents tell their children they are ‘chosen ones’ and Satan & Demons exist – that unless they live in a certain way they will burn in hell. 5.) In a drunken, rage a father takes his belt to his 10 year old son 6.) Parents deny their children access to higher education, as it involves mixing with outsiders.
Would it surprise you to learn that 3, 4 and 6 are practiced by members of The Exclusive Brethren & Jehovah’s Witness Churches, here in New Zealand?
This very day, somewhere in our country, children from an Exclusive Brethren families, will be falsely told their ostracised parent is either dead, or hate them so much they don’t want to see them.
Everyday young Kiwi minds, from The Jehovah’s Witness Church are feed a diet of demons, the impending end of the world & that they are persecuted by society.
And these two religious bodies are one of many who practice similar and harmful psychological abuse on young minds.
I could give you a whole page of other examples, but it’s fair to say most people reading this, could do so as well.
Unlike the widely publicised cases of physical abuse we see in the media, psychological abuse of children, such as which I’ve described – escapes scrutiny altogether.
Take one moment to think about the last time you saw a media report about a case of where psychological abuse alone, by parents on a child, resulted in them facing charges?
The Government body that is there to protect children is the much maligned, woefully understaffed, Department Child Youth and Family (CYP’s for short).
‘Emotional abuse includes constant yelling, threatening, scaring a child, belittling them or playing games with their emotions’ (CYP’s web site)
To assist you and me to detect ‘emotional abuse’ CYP’s tell us all, we need to look for children, that….
-tend to believe they are bad and worthless -have problems getting on with others, or be hard to live with -'shut off’ or become too good -have difficulty controlling anger.
Frankly, based on what we know goes-on in thousands of households, up and down this country every day of the week, it’s impossible to take seriously CYP’s statements they take direct an interest in protecting children, from what they call “emotional abuse’.
Devoted Christians, who call themselves loving, tell easily-influenced children, they are born wicked sinners.
Theists traumatise small children with tales of hell’s flames, and do so with impunity.
After-all they know religion is the ultimate ‘get out of jail free card’.
CYP’s acknowledge the harmful impacts of this form of abuse, but seemingly never actually bother protecting a child from parents/individuals who practice it.
For all intents and purposes it appears there is a hierarchy, or scale, of abuse in New Zealand, with sexual & physical at the top and ‘emotional’, so distant at the bottom, as not to even warrant investigation, when a case is reported.
CYP’s is shielded from scrutiny into why they rarely prosecute those guilty of emotional abuse of children, sheltered behind the public’s wide-held perception that a child that is physically abused, is worse off in the long-run, than one who is psychologically abused.
Kiwis relate physical & sexual abuse, to the brown-skinned, under-class and ‘call for blood’ every-time a case reached the media.
Since, emotional abuse largely happens in ‘nice white middle-class’ homes, it is some how less threatening to society, and swept under the carpet.
‘If a crime has been committed, for example, sexual abuse or a serious assault. The Police may decide to prosecute the offender’ [CYP's site]
So let’s imagine what would happen if the head of CYP’s encountered a rough-looking Maori in the Supermarket who barked at his child in a loud threatening fashion “you are a piece of shit and you’ll never be anything in life”.
Then the CYP’s head attended a Sunday School, where the a pastor forth-rightly tells the children sitting on the floor in front of him, that “sinners will burn in hell when the world ends” and then puts-on this quaint ‘purpose-made’ approved religious video for the children to watch, and learn.
One guess, who would face admonishment, come Monday morning when the CYP’s head got to work and made their report.
Homosexual Law Reform (1986) decriminalised sexual relations between men aged 16 and over in New Zealand. No longer would men having consensual sex with each other be liable to prosecution and a term of imprisonment.
New Zealand took its cue from English social and legal traditions, in which sex between men was believed to be an 'unnatural offence' and a breach of moral and Christian codes – it was in fact still a crime for over a century 'not to be named among Christians'. Until 1961 the act of anal intercourse, carried a penalty of life imprisonment in New Zealand.
The late 60’s saw the first attempt to decriminalise homosexual acts, but the campaign quickly floundered. A letter to the campaigners from the Lord Cobham (former Governor General)best sums-up the conservative attitudes of the day “These people are mentally sick to as great an extent as, for example, people suffering from smallpox are sick. The whole problem of legalising this offence seems to me to hinge upon the extent to which the disease is contagious.”.
This societal phobia against gays continued through the 70’s when Colin Moyle was forced to resign from parliament in 1977 after Robert Muldoon – then Leader of the Opposition – alleged that Moyle had been picked up by the police while soliciting in a public place.
Even by the mid 80’ there were still large tracts of society who shared the belief homosexuality could be spread, & teens would be targeted by homosexuals.
Homosexual Law Reform was also a ‘poison chalice’ that no political party was willing to drink from, and the bill was introduced to the N.Z House of Representatives on 8 March 1985 as ‘a private members’ initiative by Fran Wilde, and voted-on by the ‘conscious’ of each MP, rather than party lines.
The bill had two parts. The first dealt with the decriminalisation of sexual offences between men as well as the decriminalisation of consensual heterosexual anal intercourse, while providing protection for minors of both sexes. The second would make it illegal to discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation in the areas of employment, accommodation etc.
What was being fought for was not simply decriminalisation, but the social acceptance of homosexuality.
“I believe that the real aim [of the gay community] is to change society’s attitudes towards homosexuality and gain total acceptance of homosexual behaviours in all areas,” [ Opponent of Law Reform, Labour MP Geoff Braybrooke, Parliament 1986]
“Many thousands of people came out in their families,” “and that was part of a process of changing understanding of gayness in New Zealand society, which was more important than the law change” [Bill Logan, the public face of the Gay Task Force ]
At the time of the bill was being argued AIDS was a major issue, and anti-reform groups ‘saddled this horse’ claiming AIDS would be spread like a plague through-out the community. The Salvation Army were particularly vocal in raising this spectre, flying in campaigners from overseas to reinforce the paranoia a ‘powder keg’ that would explode, should homosexuality be legalised. Conservative Christian Groups, rallied under the banner of ‘Coalition of Concerned Citizens’ sought out support from the U.S.
One of these so-called experts was American ‘psychologist’ Dr Paul Cameron, who infamously is on record saying the early ‘80s stating, Gays are "worse than murderers," and his solution with AIDS was “all practicing homosexuals should be required to register and their movements should be tracked,". Charmed I’m sure.
Christian interest groups argued that the law would some how lead to more homosexuality and the nett result would eventually mean the collapse of the family unit.
Young boys would be put at risk. Homosexuality and paedophilia were constantly linked to build-up public hysteria. The Coalition of Concerned Citizens called this a Seduction Theory which they outlined in their literature, using the most unfortunate turn of phrase “‘Impressionable young people' will be sucked in to gay sex with older men”.
“I submit that the proposed Bill would be, if passed, a fountain of unmitigated evil.” [excerpt from a public submission at the time from Mr P A Bindoff]
“If a homosexual approaches me for a job I cannot discriminate against him on that ground. I believe I should have that right; I should be able to say: ‘I do not blame you for being homosexual; I am not heaping scorn and condemnation upon your head; I accept that you have the right to think as you will, but I do not want anything to do with you and I don’t want to employ you.” [Doug Graham, National Party in his submission, happy to descriminate on sexuality, but then in the next breath, putting his Treaty Negotiator ‘hat on’ then arguing for Maori compensation. Duplicitous moi?]
“I believe you’re here to stand for righteousness, and I believe you’re here tonight to stand for the God-ordained family unit.” “We’re asking Christians everywhere to really pray and seek the guidance of God about this” [ Barry Reed of the Moral Majority, on Radio NZ ]
“Sick, sad perverts, choosing abomination . . . they spread their filth over the world . . . hiding their degradation under the word Gay . . . a disgusting Bill which would legitimise buggery . . . voting in favour of filth, sodomy, fellatio, and other nameless horrors . .[ abridged, Len Assheton-Harbord, Nelson Evening Mail ]
A central part of the on-going debate was a huge nationwide ‘anti-gay’ petition, the brain-child of four MPs ( Geoff Braybrooke, Graeme Lee, Norman Jones, Allan Wallbank) opposing the legislation – which was rejected by Parliament's Petitions Committee due to the high number of irregularities (false names, duplicate signings etc) The petition itself was administered by those nice people at The Salvation Army & partly funded by businessmen like Keith ‘Homes’ Hay. The petition which gathered an estimated 350,000 signatures, did go to prove that opposition to the bill was strong.
The elaborate presentation of the petition to Parliament, dubbed 'The Nuremberg Rally' (24th Sept 1985) was stage-managed by American lobbyist Jack Swan, who had previously acted as a public-relations officer for the Catholic diocese of New York. Not only did this almost militaristic display of religious zeal outside Parliament (including the formation of a human cross) tend to scare away support from ‘middle New Zealand’ the whole exercise was lampooned , when the organisers claims they had 800,000 signatures were found to be ludicrously over-stated, petition boxes mostly empty.
“The overstatement involved in the presentation of the boxes and the overstatement of numbers do no credit to the petitioners,” [Junior MP Trevor Mallard]
The Homosexual Law Reform Bill took 14 months to move through the parliamentary process. Members of Parliament had rejected a proposed amendment that would raise the age of consent to 18, so it remained at 16 in the final legislation – the same age as for heterosexuals.
Prayer vigils were held outside Parliament as the date was voting came closer.
The final vote was held on 9 July 1986, and the bill was passed by 49 votes to 44.
Gays, lesbians and their supporters partied; church leaders up and down the country (a notable exception were The Presbyterians) predicted doom and gloom. For the first time in New Zealand legal history, homosexual men could enter into sexual relationships without fear of prosecution.
The depth of anger, manifested itself when in September of that year The Lesbian and Gay Rights Resource Centre in Wellington was vandalised and partially destroyed by arson.
It was a sad epilogue to a debate which had unleashed violent passions on both sides.
For the law reformers, it was still only a partial victory. The second part of the bill, which would have removed discrimination on the basis of sexuality, was rejected. Opponents argued that homosexuality was not a human rights issue and that discrimination was fair and acceptable. It wasn't until the Human Rights Act was passed in 1993 that it became illegal in New Zealand to discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation.
For a great many decent, fair-minded, ordinary New Zealanders watching this ‘religious hatred’ surrounding The Homosexual Law Reform bubble to the surface - was the last straw. They saw ‘the ugly side’ and primeval nature of religion in New Zealand & rejected its divisiveness. Christian perception did not mirror what they knew was the case in reality. Most Kiwis had ‘gays’ in their social circle, work-mates, neighbours over the fence & sometimes as a relative.
These were not the same group vilified by Churches in their propaganda.
For the first time in our countries history Christians themselves, found they were a minority on a major issue of morality, and saw themselves as ‘fighting the good fight’ against a godless secular society bent on destroying the countries very foundations.
The late Norman Jones (left), the National MP for Invercargill, one of the four behind the petition, most certainly saw the struggle in these heroic terms. “It’s a war,” he declared on Radio New Zealand in November 1985. “It’s a war [against] people who knowingly undertake sodomy and anal intercourse knowing that they’re going to infect the other partner [with AIDS]…. So far as I’m concerned, no quarter is being given and no quarter is being asked.”
This was The Springbok Tour issue revisited, only this time Churches were on the other side of the barricades & today many dissenters from 1986 would be embarrassed at their stand. Whilst marching against ‘the tour’ is seen by many as a badge of honour, a similar level of kudos could not be garnished with claims “ I protested against the bill”.
So what has changed since the bill was passed?
Certainly not the doom laden prophecies of the anti brigade.
AIDs trends in New Zealand followed those of other western countries, gay men and lesbians are accepted in the wider community for who they are, not their sexual preferences.
A survey of opinions was done only 18 months after the bill was passed, and the results showed a massive swing in public opinion, 80 per cent of Kiwi’s saying they wanted homosexual acts to remain decriminalised.
Many of the more moderate Christian Churches now accept Gays for ordination.
New Zealanders sense for fair-play has subsequently seen voters endorse the world’s first transgender Member of Parliament.
In many ways the Homosexual Law Reform was a water-shed, signalling the demise of religious influence in both New Zealand Law and Society.
Atheists do look for answers to existence itself. They just don't make them up. What am I like? Well, imagine Reginald Perrin, only more neurotic & dependent on beer to function normally in public.
