(Pic: Jenny O'Connor) A “family” lunch in Wellington held on Sunday to celebrate the legalising of same-sex marriage has raised more than $3000 for queer youth support group, School’s Out. The event, Fabulunch, was attended by 115 people including local MPs Grant Robertson and Jan Logie who acknowledged the political and community effort involved in the campaign for marriage equality since the mid-nineties. Logie said that social equality had still not been achieved for all members of the gay, lesbian, and trans communities and there was still work to do. Fran Wilde, who introduced the private member’s bill that led to the Homosexual Law Reform Act in 1985, was a special guest. Wilde said it was important that groups working with queer youth like Schools Out were now available and they needed to be supported. “We could not even have imagined such groups 30 years ago.” Australian couple Trent Kandler and Paul McCarthy who married at Te Papa on Monday after winning a Positively Wellington Tourism’s competition joined the event for lunch at Ms Wilde’s invitation. Event organiser Jac Lynch said the event was organised to both give the community a chance to come together to celebrate a special moment in New Zealand’s queer history, and to serve as a reminder that voluntary groups like Schools Out needed support. Schools Out will use the funding to set up an office at the youth health service, Evolve Wellington.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 20th August 2013 - 12:58pm