Gay families came under fire from Destiny, and were partially defended by the Maxim Institute last night on TV One's Insight programme on the New Zealand family, which endeavoured to look at the family in all its forms. Destiny New Zealand leader Richard Lewis, when challenged by the Maori Party's Tariana Turia to explain precisely how the Civil Union Bill would affect his family, answered that his children would grow up in a world where a behaviour and lifestyle he considered to be unnatural would be normalized. In a moderate performance, Greg Fleming from the Maxim Institute apologized to gays and lesbians for the Destiny comments, and was critical of the programme's phone-in poll question, which asked if gay-parented families were real families, saying anyone who answered no to the poll should be "visited". MP and gay dad Chris Carter asked Fleming not to try and water down his anti-civil union stance with subtlety. Carter also referred to Lewis as being from the Destiny Church – not the political party – and Lewis did not bother to correct him, adding more confusion as to where the line between the church and its political wing is to be drawn. Host Susan Wood spoke to various families around New Zealand via live link-up, including one family headed by a lesbian couple. MP Carter was the only gay guest in the studio, which also found room for a representative of the fundamentalist group Promise Keepers.
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Thursday, 23rd September 2004 - 12:00pm