Christian Heritage leader Ewen McQueen maintains there is no evidence whatsoever that New Zealand has a problem with violence being publicly incited against minority groups, despite media reports of widespread physical and verbal abuse against gays and lesbians in the Lavender Islands survey, and desecration of Jewish cemeteries. "The violence at the Jewish cemeteries was simply an act of vandalism, it was not the result of people publicly inciting violence against Jews at all," McQueen told GayNZ.com. Christian Heritage believes the government's inquiry into hate speech legislation is part of a homosexual plot to stifle “open debate” on homosexuality. "I think you will find among the liberal media, far more public attacks on so-called fundamentalist Christians than you will against the homosexual lifestyle. It's far more prevalent publicly, there's been no studies done obviously, no-ones really interested in doing a study about it." McQueen was aware of media reports of the Lavender Islands survey but had not read them. "I'd heard that there was a lot of verbal abuse according to that report, but Christians suffer a lot of verbal abuse as well, but we don't go round asking for hate speech legislation." He says the Christian Heritage party is "considering" whether they will make a submission to the select committee debating the need for the legislation, and that they do not endorse personal attacks, or verbal and physical abuse against anyone.
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Tuesday, 10th August 2004 - 12:00pm