Big News: "Your Hatred Is Intolerable"

Well, the Destiny march is over. Everyone has had enough. The Destiny party wanted to make an impact and they did - even if only one MP came out and mingled with the crowd.

Labour MP Georgina Beyer showed her face and spoke her mind to the Destiny supporters:"Your hatred is intolerable". Perhaps hers was too. The Green's Sue Bradford, who has been arrested several times during protest marches in the past, a called the Destiny black-shirters "facists".

So, anyone who disagrees with you and wants to exercise their democratic right to protest are haters and facists, are they?

And just because people are raising fists in the air or doing hakas, does that mean they are promoting hatred?

Still, there were unseemly events during the march, like "reporters" trying to thrust microphones into kids faces to find out what they thought about "standing up to the bad people."

At least Helen Clark didn't call the protesters haters and wreckers. Instead she commented on Brian Tamaki's offer to draft family legislation, saying she was surprised to be asked, as four years ago Tamaki said that women leaders were of the devil. Helen Clark also noted that there were lots of kids in black tee shirts who were missing school.

However she didn’t comment about all the supporters of the bill who were missing school. That’s because she was glad they showed up. Many were from Wellington High School - the school that hosts Destiny Church's weekend services - predominately from the gay and lesbian group that wants Destiny kicked out of their school in the weekends, and organised a petition in which many students signed.

But these kids don't have a say as to who uses the school in the weekends - that’s up to the Board of Trustees who are happy to pick up the $600.00 paid by Destiny every week. But in order for a group to hire a school hall the contract says there "has to be tangible education benefits".

So what are these tangible education benefits - or doesn't it matter. Perhaps it’s a bit like the abortion laws that get flouted on just about every abortion where laws state that an abortion should only be done if it is detrimental to the woman's mental health. The laws are a farce.

But I digress. There has been a flurry of media releases pre and post march. The Christian Heritage Party's Ewan McQueen says this:

"Unfortunately many of our current political leaders believe the lie that they must be neutral about relationships. The Human Rights Act, they say does not allow us to discriminate. My answer to that is very simple. If the Human Rights Act does not allow us to do the very thing our society most urgently needs – to positively discriminate in favour of the institution of marriage – then the Human Rights Act needs to change.

Unfortunately some of our leaders are more committed to their ideological agendas than they are to facing the truth. They say we don’t have a problem with family breakdown in New Zealand, we just have increased diversity of family structure. 43,400 child abuse notifications is not diversity, it is a disaster, and it is completely unacceptable."

The Rev Margaret Mayman says attitudes from groups such as Destiny and CHP are not representative of the Christian church. But then, neither is hers. The only representatives of the church at Parliament were the conservatives and liberals - the rest stayed away.

Dr Gill Greer Family Planning Association executive director buddied up with the YWCA and AIDS Foundation in saying that the sexual orientation of a parent is irrelevant to the development of a child’s mental health and social development and the quality of parenting.

“It is a major concern to us that young people in New Zealand schools can be subject to disapproval, harassment, bullying and discrimination because of the standing of their parent’s relationship. Such discrimination on the basis of their parents’ status is in conflict with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

So how will a change of legislation alter bullying in schools? And while you're at it, name some people who have been bullied because of their parent's sexual orientation.

More people were shouted at yesterday by a politician due to their religious beliefs.

- Dave Crampton is a Wellinton writer and blogs at http://www.big-news.blogspot.com

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