I want to comment on the Dom Post article “Are liberals the new fascists?” But unfortunately I never got around to buying my own copy. Oh well. It was interesting. David McLoughlin certainly portrayed a fluffier version of the Destiny gathering than I experienced. They weren’t all saying, “Jesus loves you,” that’s for sure.
And can someone PLEASE send out a memo explaining the difference between legalisation and decriminalisation? I am so sick of them being used interchangeably.
Legalisation and decriminalisation are not the same. Legalisation means that activities are made legal and are no longer regulated in any way. Decriminalisation means the activities are no longer crimes, and the participants are no longer liable to criminal penalties, but their activities are regulated by law and transgressions can still be penalised.
Just so we’re clear about this, the bill decriminalised prostitution. Before the prostitution reform legislation was passed, if a man went up to a woman and offered her money to have sex with him, he was protected by the law. If a woman went up to a man and offered to have sex with him for money, she could be convicted. Hardly fair. Safe sex literature and products could be used as evidence. Not a great way to encourage safe sex practices. The bill has removed the archaic double standards, encourages saver and fairer work places, protects children from exploitation, and protects the rights of those in the industry.
Right, here endeth the lecture.
Could any of you Christians out there provide me with an example from the bible where Jesus started a religious party, campaigned to the Romans against a particular section of society he found disagreeable, organized a protest march, or asked any of his followers for money? Oh, perhaps he was just too busy helping the poor and the sick. - Dave, comment on kiwiblog .
I was molested as child, I will never forget the name and the face of the man who done this to me. Now 21, I was recently watching the news, the (hikoi copycat!) destiny march against gays was on. The weird thing was, there in the front row of the haka doing a pukana at the camera was the man that touched me, when I was only 6 - sad, comment on kiwiblog .
sad’s comment had me in tears again. I was abused by a Christian guy from a “traditional” family. When Tamaki suggests that if we return to traditional family values, a family with the man at the head, his wife and their children, this will solve all sorts of problems including child abuse... it really upsets me. Newsflash people, the vast majority of child abusers are heterosexual. Most of them are men. Many claim to be Christian. And a lot come from “traditional” families.
David McLoughlin may have seen the counter protestors as more fascist than Tamaki, but he probably didn’t fear for his life at the protest. If it was up to me, there would have been less angry shouting from our side… but we are not lead by a dictator, who has absolute right of veto over any decisions made by any of the 20 branches of the Destiny church. Since we didn’t have such a charismatic leader to give us instructions, we just had to go with the flow. And some of us panicked when all those thousands of people swarmed onto parliament, shouting angrily. About us, and how we’re abominations and we’re destroy society. My response to the fear I felt was to retreat inside myself, and hope no one noticed how much I was shaking. Other people responded by shouting back at the Destiny crowd... and understandably.
In the past few days I have been told that I am an abomination, possessed by an evil spirit, I am sinful, I am hateful, I am a murderer(?!), I am sick, evil, perverted, I rape children, I am the cause of the ruination of society. I have been told God hates me and I will burn in hell. Wanna add fascist to that list? Fine, won’t make much of a difference.
Of course people should have the right to protest, and to voice their opinions... even if I don't agree with them. But is there a limit? As a country we told a holocaust denier he couldn’t come here and speak. Why? Because the things he says are dangerous to certain members of our community.
Tamaki is spreading a message of hate and intolerance against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual people. A group of people who are already targets of abuse, both verbal and physical. A group of people who are at high risk of suicide. A group of people who were tortured and executed in the concentration camps.
Some people are still going to say that Destiny is not spreading hate.
I’m left wondering...
If telling me I am evil and I will burn in hell is not hate, then what is?
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This is the 6th post relating to the Destiny Enough Is Enough march.
Go to post 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
The Dominion Post article you were talking about was too sympathetic with the Destiny Church. It focused on the more extreme viewpoint that hatespeech should be outlawed. Personally, I don't see that there is a great need for such hatespeech law. It could stop people comparing Tamaki to Hitler or saying that the Destiny Church has cult like aspects to it.
Some Christians do end up disliking gays because they end up disliking what they do. If you disapprove of what burgulars do then you also tend to end up disliking them. It is bollocks for them to say they really love gays when they don't.
The Christians are quite good with coming up with the hate speech. Saying that people are evil, possessed, off to hell etc when all they want is the same rights as everyone else. If you have had these type of insults thrown at you I advise you not to take them to seriously as they are coming from Taliban type individuals.
But anyway the media has generally ignored the diversity of the people involved in the counter protest. It has ignored that there were Maori and heteros that were part of the counter protest. It also ignored that there were a lot of teenagers there from say Wellington High who were supporting the Civil Union Bills.
I really like the pictures that you put up of the counter protest. It is about the only media coverage that I have seen that does justice to those people supporting the civil unions bills on that Monday.
I was wondering if I could borrow some of the pictures that you have got here and republish some of them elsewhere. This would be gratefully used by the Humanist Society as part of their magazine or advertising. This would not be a large scale publication of your photos. To find out more about the Humanist Society go to www.humanist.org.nz . This Society supports the civil union legislation as you can see by the submission that is posted on our website.
Posted by: Kent at August 30, 2004 08:35 AMI disagree that there should be limits to freedom of speech. When you start talking about ideas being dangerous to the community and therefore needing to be suppressed, you're basically beating the same drum as Mr. Tamaki himself.
It may confuse the issues to talk about freedom of speech, but it's an important topic to raise. Do we have principles that we are only prepared to stick to when it suits us? That goes for everyone, on all sides.
My preferred response to hatespeech: talk louder. Make the other voices heard. Whether they are angry voices or not. I don't think it achieves much in real terms, in a protest situation, but I believe that bigotry shouldn't go unopposed. Even if in opposing it you make yourself look bad.
That said, when things got real nasty at Parliament, I burst into tears and went back to work.
Posted by: Eleanor at August 31, 2004 12:10 PMHi, I noticed you were talking about bisexual issues at this site
Please feel free to submit your site to shdir.com (if im mistaken, im very sorry, it's a semi-auto program to find relevant sites ;-)