It's Friday 30th March 2007 and the on-air confrontation between Rachael Le Mesurier, Executive Director of the NZ AIDS Foundation, and Radio Live hosts John Tamihere and Willie Jackson continues. To recap, over the past year Radio Live national talkback host John Tamihere has mounted a seemingly endless litany of diatribes guaranteed to bring out the worst in his clearly already glbt-averse listeners. Sadly, very few gay or lesbian callers - or our supporters - have been prepared to ring 0800 RADIOLIVE (0800 723 465) and take on Tamihere. The New Zealand AIDS Foundation, criticised on numerous Tamihere talkback sessions for ‘promoting the homosexual lifestyle' (part of its fight against HIV includes assisting development of positive attitudes to homosexuality and fostering personal and community development) decided to take action. On little more than a technicality, the Broadcasting Standards Authority did not uphold the NZAF's formal complaints, much to the pleasure of Tamihere. The vileness from Tamihere and his listeners continued, along the lines of “gays should be removed from NZ and put in waters around Auckland Islands,” and criticism of homosexual law reform 20 years ago, and TV shows “full of over the top faggots” wanting to be accepted. And on and on. NZAF head Rachael Le Mesurier got mightily worked up on behalf of the otherwise silent gay community and, after unsuccessfully trying to arrange off-air face to face mediation, tried to engage the hosts on air In part one of this transcript of the resulting on-air rumble (see link below) Le Mesurier tried to argue our case, but getting any mesage through Tamihere's muted belligerance proved difficult. At the end of part one of our transcript Tamihere even suggested the NZAF's real job should be to stop gay people coming out! ************* Rachael Le Mesurier: It's really quite hard to have young people come out when they hear derogatory comments like you make about who they are. John Tamihere: Well what are you doing to stem them from coming out? Le Mesurier: Sorry, what was that? What am I doing to defend them or stem them? Willie Jackson: Can you just give me an example of one comment that really sticks out, from John to you? Le Mesurier: Well I actually do have a transcript, and it was only just yesterday. You made some kind of on-going reference that homosexuals are imposing their values on society but won't let people state their… Tamihere: Yes, that's right, that's exactly... Le Mesurier: I just think that's a shame that... Tamihere: Yeah, but Rachael, that's exactly what you're doing right now and I object to that, right, and so... Le Mesurier: No, no, no, we're not, not imposing, I'm just saying that your derogatory comments are hurtful, and they're particularly hurtful for a community that we're trying to work around with HIV and AIDS, trying to make clear to that community that they do have rights and... Tamihere: Well hang on, hey, don't worry about my hurt, what are you doing amongst your own community to sort out the HIV issue? Le Mesurier: Well that's a really good question. Heaps, and we've got heaps to do, and we actually want to carry on... Tamihere: But tell me in what way am I stopping your very necessary work on limiting the spread of HIV? Le Mesurier: Well it's like saying, don't hit your wife but by the way, women are not actually all that important. And they piss me off, and they're of no value, and they really, you know, I don't like them... it's a really dual message. Tamihere: No, I don't accept that analogy at all. How do you say that I've just said, it's good to hit a woman - and what else did you say? Le Mesurier: No, what I was trying to say is when you're trying to say it's wrong to hit women and then someone else says, at the same time, women are not of equal right, women have not got equal, we don't want to respect that... Tamihere: Hang on, I've never said you've not got equal rights, I do not... Le Mesurier: You're pretty intolerant. Jackson: Yeah. Le Mesurier: Would that be right, would you say you're intolerant? Tamihere: No, what I'll say is I am a heterosexual and I support heterosexual lifestyles. Just because I don't... Le Mesurier: You're promoting heterosexuality, aren't you, John? Tamihere: Hang on, just because I don't bend over backward to you, to say that I shouldn't oppose your worldview because I don't like it. Le Mesurier: So, what is it, a worldview or is it a human rights piece of legislation that says homosexuality is of equal right? It's not so much a world view, it's a... Tamihere: Yeah but really, what's the problem with your equal rights, how am I taking those away? You've got legislated equal rights, how am I taking those away? Le Mesurier: You're actually passing really negative derogatory comments about a community that needs to stay strong against a really serious health risk. Jackson: Yeah. Tamihere: Yes but you see, where you're going is that you're starting to police my ability to think and express myself in a democracy. People like you – I want you to tolerate my views. Le Mesurier: I will tolerate, and I'm really happy to tolerate, those constructive and helpful views, but when someone says something that's really negative and hurtful to others, one of the key things about tolerance is respect and dignity, tolerating people of differences. Jackson: Is he allowed to, in your view, because he does have a right to say, I don't actually have a right to say, “I don't actually like homosexuality,” does he have that right in your view? Le Mesurier: I think what's difficult is recognising the impact and that placing homosexuality is somehow different from, “oh I don't like women” or “I don't like Maori” or “I don't like Jews”. Homosexuality has not been understood to be not a lifestyle choice but a reality. Jackson: But isn't it a bit presumptuous, and I'd say with respect, arrogant of you to sort of say, well a sexual practice is the equivalent of an ethnic race - you know, like Maori? Le Mesurier: Well no, I think that this will probably be where we may need to disagree. Jackson: Okay. Le Mesurier: Absolutely, it is equal and that's why it's right alongside with rights. It's in the legislation. Jackson: Yeah, I would disagree with that. You know, you're talking about a… Le Mesurier: You're heterosexual. You're really clear that's part of your identity; you're really strong on that, that's excellent. We just want to be able to say that homosexuality is for equal strength. To be quite frank, it worries me, John, that you spend so much time at different points throughout your whole show talking about homosexuals. It bothers me that that's all you're talking about. Tamihere: No, we're talking about homosexuality because you filed a significant and long-winded complaint about one or two programmes where the topic... Le Mesurier: One or two? Hang on, many of them actually. Jackson: How many? Tamihere: No but wait a minute, because on a number of occasions people that fly the flag for you run their flag up, it's on the front page of... Le Mesurier: It's not the AIDS Foundation… Tamihere: It's on the front page of newspapers and the like, and then we discuss it - and we are allowed to discuss it as a free country. Thanks very much, Rachael. (Le Mesurier is cut off) Jackson: Hey Rachael, thank you for the call, but we need to move on. But thank you for your call. I think you got a fair whack. We'll go to the calls straight after the break. ********** Phew! So how does the crusading NZAF boss feel after her treatment on air? “When dealing with a hostile host, talkback radio is a difficult environment to get your points across effectively,” Le Mesurier says. “The host is totally in control and drives the conversation. You can be talked over or cut off at their whim. Le Mesurier actually had a slight advantage over most other callers, her call was guaaranteed to bypass the usual off-air screening process. “My appearance on the show was arranged in advance by dealing with Radio Live's management, as there had been a whole day's worth of discussion about NZAF and homosexuality on Wednesday that we had not been aware of at the time.” Most of the feedback the NZAF has received about Le Mesurier's appearance has been positive, she says. “However, it is unlikely that we will engage in this manner in future.” Sadly, and perhaps predictably, he homophobia continued just a few minutes after Le Mesurier's call. Even advertisers got in on it: Wayne Harris from cleaning product company ‘Wet and Forget' (email address: sales@wetandforget.co.nz), told Tamihere: “I've been listening today and boy, you've got ‘em going. I listened to Rachael's call, and I put my fingers down my throat. I couldn't believe it, son… she keeps defending those tail gunners, I can't believe it!” So did the NZAF boss's call make a difference? Le Mesurier thinks so. “Our challenging of homophobia on Radio Live has made us an easy target for John Tamihere, but it has raised awareness both with station management and listeners that homophobia, like racism, is not acceptable. It has also resulted in an increase of gay or gay-supportive callers making it on air. We will be watching with interest to see how gay-related issues are dealt with on the show in future.” And rest assured, GayNZ.com will be listening! GayNZ.com - 20th April 2007