A speculative story about the winners of a same-sex marriage competition breaking up has been greeted with criticism by most, and homophobia from some. The NZ Herald reports Melissa Ray and Tash Vitali “appear” to have split, less than a year after the wedding they won from ZM. The story is based on a poem on Vitali’s Facebook page, which has now been taken down. Vitali told a NZ Herald reporter “It's not anyone's business, we'll just leave it at that, but thank you for calling.” As soon as the Herald posted the story on its own Facebook page it was flooded with comments. “There's no evidence apart from you stalking their Facebook,” writes gay Labour candidate Richard Hills. “And who cares. And how many featured stories are you doing on straight divorces. This is odd.” “How is this anyone's business?” another person writes, while another adds “sounds like a hetero couple then ,we are all the same”. Others say the couple wanted publicity for their wedding, so should have expected the interest from media. However another reader adds “It isn’t anyone else's business and people should leave them alone. Lots of couples break up within a year of marriage, gay or straight. And saying they wanted publicity is stupid, they wanted a free wedding like anyone would as they're massively expensive, I'm sure if a straight couple won a wedding we wouldn't be having such a hoopla that they'd broken up. Leave them alone and get a life.” There have also been a handful of homophobic comments in the “Adam and Steve” and “she must have ‘gone back’ to men” vein. Over on Twitter, MP Peter Dunne is among those who have weighed in, tweeting "And the relevance of this story is? How many straight couples split every day, and will you now be reporting them?"
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 17th July 2014 - 8:32am