While he may have been intending to have a laugh, the MP dubbed "Minister of Twitter" Tau Henare is being urged to apologise and broaden his horizons a little after tweeting "what a gay story" about an article discussing the use of the word 'gay' as a derogatory term within New Zealand schools. The tweet followed a story where teacher Warren Bowers called for the negative slang use of the word 'gay' to be wiped from schools. Henare has since been heavily criticised on Twitter, but has spat back at his detractors, calling one a liar and advising him to learn to laugh and telling others not to take themselves too seriously. When former UniQ Otago secretary Richard Girvan pointed out the term was "very derogatory and offensive and contributes to a pervasive homophobic culture in this country," Henare bit back with "bullshit". Executive Director of Q-Youth in Nelson Seb Stewart works with many queer young people and is adamant the experiences they have shared show the term 'gay' is damaging when it's used as negative schoolyard slang. He says Henare's tweet is unenlightened: "It indicates his incapacity to role-reverse with that minority group. If he had a queer child I think he'd have a really different view of it. He'd be able to see the day to day consequences of the homophobia within that institution on his child," Stewart says. "To me it's amusing and disturbing that a Maori person isn't able to examine issues with a queer person and see the prejudice and discrimination." Stewart is urging the National MP to not only apologise, but also to spend some time with some queer youth who have actually experienced the negative effects of the term being bandied around to mean 'uncool'. Out Green MP Kevin Hague hates the casual and ubiquitous prejudice of 'that's so gay'. "It is one of the more explicit ways in which young (especially) queers are put down every day, with all too often extremely negative consequences," he says "Knowing Tau, and having seen some of his later tweets, I would guess that he didn't intend offence, and thought he was just making a light-hearted remark," Hague says. "However, humour based on prejudice against a minority may be amusing for a majority but harmful to that minority. When I was a kid Pakeha kids often made jokes based on prejudice against Maori. Does Tau get it now?"
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 12th July 2011 - 3:34pm