An Invercargill church has used part of a New Zealand AIDS Foundation inclusiveness poster in an anti-gay advertisement published in the Southland Times. The Hawthorndale Community Church used only part of the poster to claim it as evidence of gay relationships being promoted in schools and raised the question of how the promotion of homosexuality to young people in New Zealand increased their likelihood of committing suicide. NZAF spokeswoman Rachael Le Mesurier says the church "seems willing to risk exacerbating sexuality-related suicide among young people just to score a political point". She points out that the poster campaign was not about promoting homosexuality, but rather it was "a sound, research-based, public health measure aimed at decreasing bullying, social isolation, and self-harm behaviours." Le Mesurier also comments "non-heterosexual youth are over-represented as victims of bullying, in truancy, and in mental health issues including drug and alcohol abuse and suicide. The latest findings from Dr David Fergusson's Christchurch School of Medicine study confirm this. This is not because of some inherent nature of homosexuality, but because non-heterosexual youth grow up experiencing thousands of negative messages about who and what they are – messages exactly like those delivered by the Hawthorndale Community Church's advertisement."
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Saturday, 1st October 2005 - 12:00pm