The organisers of a Picnic at Parliament to support the first reading of the Civil Union Bill in July are holding a sequel picnic on Thursday, but this time they will have company. Anti-civil union protesters are being encouraged to join a silent "vigil" at midday in Parliament grounds, via a full-page ad in today's Dominion Post. The ad is signed "from a Kiwi family", and features a bizarre pencil sketch of a man standing next to a woman he appears to feeling up. An anonymous protester, afraid to be named in case of reprisals, told the newspaper protesters will be encouraged to hold placards. He said buses were being organised from different parts of the country and thousands were expected to attend. Picnic at Parliament organiser AJ Marsh said supporters had no intention of remaining silent. "If you think about it we have been silent for too long. We let them make disgusting comments about our lifestyles and nasty ill-informed comments about how and what we are,” he said. "They are pushing us into a corner and I'm not taking it any more." Meanwhile, hate leaflets from the Support Good Morals Campaign are being run off in their hundreds of thousands and being distributed. They say the Civil Union Bill will lead to the “spiritual destruction of many” and legally sanctions “immoral relationships”. The leaflets also contain discredited Paul Cameron statistics that allege gay men die in their forties, and makes reference to the equally-discredited '800,000-signature' petition against homosexual law reform in 1985, which was found to be full of repeat signatures and forgeries.
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Wednesday, 8th December 2004 - 12:00pm