12:30PM: The ACT party is to remove references from its anti-PC campaign that suggest gay people have hijacked the English language to attain a "new veneer of legitimacy". ACT's PC-Free-NZ campaign, spearheaded by deputy leader Muriel Newman and detailed on the party's website, aims to bust the use of so-called PC language. "Certain words have been hijacked - stolen from our English language heritage - for political gain. It is not hard to see the objective here, creating a new veneer of legitimacy for what a failed social, economic and political philosophy,” runs the website intro. "Think about the word "Liberal", which used to mean 'Libertarian', but is now often misused to mean 'Socialist'. "Gay" used to mean 'Happy', but is now 'Homosexual'. "Progressive" was symbolic of economic and technical advancement, but is now applied to those espousing the collectivist ideals - and 'progress' toward them." Party leader Rodney Hide told GayNZ.com the party has "no issue with gay people whatsoever. We are a liberal party colour-blind to social labels". He says he has asked Newman, who voted against the Civil Union Bill, to remove the reference to homosexuality from the campaign "to save any confusion" about its message. On the same page as the homosexuality reference, it is also stated: "Labour's social engineering agenda has un-nerved many New Zealanders who feel that a government should be there to protect civil society, not undermine and attack it." Hide says it was not intended to suggest that gays and lesbians were illegitimate citizens. "ACT considers gay and lesbians to be very legitimate - that's why the majority of caucus support the Civil Union Bill. I am the only only opposition leader who supported the bill. ACT never runs this line of logic because we simply don't believe it."
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Wednesday, 2nd March 2005 - 12:00pm