Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki may very well think there are no gay Maori among his franchised congregations, but that would be far from accurate, says AIDS Foundation chair Hoani Jeremy Lambert. In an interview with Radio Pacific's John Banks last week about the AIDS Foundation's Gay Warriors For Safe Sex takataapui campaign, Banks suggested that some of these gay warriors may be within Tamaki's church. "I don't think so, John," Tamaki replied. "Well, I know there are," Lambert told GayNZ.com. "And that's the sad thing. I know of one individual, a leader of one of his abstinence programmes, who is a man who has sex with other men, who is deeply conflicted about it. I try and counsel and assist him, and assist with trying to mitigate a lot of the damage that people like Brian Tamaki do to our young people. That's just a one-off example that I know, I'm sure it's not the only one." Lambert says there is a stereotype of Maori families being more accepting of their glbt family members which is untrue. "For teenage Maori men the pressures upon them to conform to a so-called stereotype around what it means to be a male within your culture is immense," he says. "Our opponents are people who aren't just satisfied with a heterosexist agenda, they will not be satisfied until every Maori gay men is humiliated, and till we acknowledge that you cannot be Maori and gay. That's what they're looking for. And I'm not overplaying it – that is the reality." Banks and Tamaki lampooned the gay Maori men featured in the AIDS Foundation poster during their interview, and expressed their disbelief that gay men can be happy. "When I look at the sad faces of all these Maori warriors on this homosexual ad, they, can't, they can't be happy getting around behaving in this way, can they?" said Banks. "Happy may not be a term I would use either, particularly when I'm confronted with such diabolical remarks," Lambert says. "I don't know exactly what John Banks link into my happy-o-meter is, but I'd say it's not a relevant emotion to be monitoring. When he looks in that poster, he may not see a lot of smiles, but he should be fairly intimidated by the pride of those people that are in there."
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Wednesday, 8th March 2006 - 12:00pm