SEVEN DEADLY SINNERS We must remember in this life that for every sweet marshmallow, there is a brussel sprout waiting in the wings. Hot on the heels of our Magnificent Seven awards GayNZ.com gets out the cat-o-nine-tails to administer a Mel Gibson-style Christ-whipping of our seven deadly sinners for 2004: Express newspaper From its attempts to kill Hero, its columnists who snipe at queer television without disclosing their own interests, to its ever-decreasing relevant gay content, Express has seemingly made every attempt this year to make its masthead 'Gay expression in New Zealand' into a complete misnomer. Alhough he is to be commended for the bold 'Ugly Faces of Homophobia' cover which riled MPs who voted against the first reading of the Civil Union Bill, editor Oliver Hall's assertion that he didn't want the paper "to read like it was a constant moan about 'the gay struggle'" is akin to Nero fiddling while Rome burns, in the face of rising anti-gay religious fundamentalism worldwide. It's difficult to know where to start when you pick up a newspaper that even the Christian Right acknowledge as the main "organ" of the gay community, to find that gays or lesbians don't even grace the cover more often than not, let alone have their issues covered in any meaningful way within its pages. Little or no HIV coverage at a time when infection rates are soaring including ignoring World AIDS Day completely, and the recent granting of column inches (without any sort of gay rebuttal) to Peter Dunne, one of the leading anti-civil union political campaigners, was insulting – who next, Gerry Brownlee? Even the passage of the Civil Union Bill itself managed only second billing on the cover of the most recent issue, after heterosexual actor Jude Law, billed as "the man we all want to spend the holidays with". One can only imagine if Express was around in 1985 it would have been "Matthew Broderick – he's hot... oh, and by the way, something called Homosexual Law Reform got passed". The Anglican Church The Anglicans have had many labels thrown at them over the years: namby-pamby, wet, dithering, woolly. We can now add “silent collaborators” to the list. The liberal wing of the Church in New Zealand, so keen to have us believe they're all about tolerance and acceptance, barely raised a murmur while Archbishop Vercoe, the man they appointed to run the Church in New Zealand, calmly talked about a “world without gays” in the Weekend Herald. And while no-one saw fit to stand up and tell him what a silly old coot he was in fear of offending “cultural sensibilities” (since when has elimination of gays been part of Maoritanga? Must have missed that part of the exhibition at Te Papa), one can only imagine it's this fear which also stopped Anglican liberals speaking out in favour of the Civil Union Bill, as representatives of other mainstream religions told politicians – with a straight face – that stopping the Bill was more important than fighting Hitler was. Three Anglican bishops saw fit to flop their wedding tackle into the mouth of the lion and sign a letter from the Human Rights Foundation which supported the Civil Union Bill, though – Bishop of Waiapu John Bluck, Bay of Plenty Bishop George Connor, and Sir Paul Reeves. However, as it stands liberal vicars in the Church now stand to lose their jobs if they perform a perfectly legal civil union for a same-sex couple, either in a church or in their capacity as clergy. And the best part? The Church is perfectly entitled to do this, protected under the Human Rights Act, exempt from the discrimination clause. And some Christians think WE want special rights? Yes, we know the Presbyterians, Catholics and Salvation Army aren't much better – but with Stuart Lange's comb-over and the continued complaints against their kiddy-fiddling clergy and staff respectively to deal with, they've got enough problems to sort out. Human Rights Commission Yes, you did read that correctly. The Human Rights Commission. Five words: What is the fucking point? If there was one organisation, one body, one group of people who you would have expected to be most voluable in their advocacy for, and public education in favour of, the Civil Union Bill, it would be these guys. The silence was deafening. Instead, this gaping hole was left to the AIDS Foundation, who even found time to hit back at Auckland mayor Dick Hubbard for suggesting gays were child abusers – the HRC just twiddled their thumbs. The Human Rights Act 1993, fought for most publicly by the glbt community, outlawed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and the Commission was created in its wake. What has it done since? Despite the numerous examples of discrimination against same-sex couples over the last ten years, which emerged publicly in the Civil Union Bill debate, no-one felt able to take a complaint to the Human Rights Commission. We have to ask why. Perhaps its because they are as toothless as a one-month old chimp. Any human rights organisation that has “mediation” as the heaviest weapon in their arsenal is in serious trouble. If Amnesty International relied solely on passive observation and “mediation”, its campaigners would be as good to send razor blades to political prisoners worldwide instead of letters. Don Brash Ah, Don. One imagines you'll be working overtime to re-establish your status as a liberal after flip-flopping for Africa on the Civil Union Bill. The problem is, Don, people have long memories, longer than the duration of your support for equal rights for gays and lesbians. While our community may be small, the classical liberal community certainly isn't, and that's bad news for you. When you were staunchly in favour of the Civil Union Bill, untainted by insulting calls for referendums and “incest” amendments, it made opponents within your party – like hypocritical ranter Brian Connell, Deputy Dawg Brownlee, and Nick Same-Speech-Five-Times Smith – seem silly. When you jumped ship, it gave them credibility. It certainly panicked Lockwood Smith, who would like to support gay rights really, but is afraid of getting lynched by the Laramie mob he'd have us believe are living in trailer parks in his electorate. Aligning yourself with the religious right is never a great move politically, Don. But I'm sure you realise that now. Unfortunately, it may be too late for you. (By the way, what was 'Pansy's Pansies' all about? What on earth was the National Party thinking when it attempted to start up an informal network of gay supporters by calling it that and having the first meeting at a gay nightclub for teenyboppers?) Stephen Franks If you were to listen to Stephen Franks without actually taking in what he's saying, you could be forgiven for thinking he's the greatest logician since Mr Spock. Once you get past the liberal language, though, you're left with nothing more than homophobic shash. Franks voted against the Civil Union Bill, he said, because he feared it would be a “stalking horse” for a hate speech law. Well, if this is true, I had better speak up while there's still time left. Mr Franks, you are a pig-ignorant, two-faced piece of shit. We've had to sit back this year and listen to you label our community “riddled with pathologies”, that you're happy to see us be “second-class citizens”, and you insulted and berated us when we had the courage to open up and talk about our personal lives in front of you – our taxpayer-funded representative – at a select committee. And after all that, you still had the cheek to say you actually supported us. Pull the other one, mate. At least the United Future fundies are up front. You may have missed out on the ACT leadership, but do us a favour and go find someone else to take out your shitty liver on. The John Sax Letter-Writing Consortium We're still coming to grips with the shock of this little group, including Auckland Mayor Dick Hubbard, Air New Zealand CEO Ralph Norris, celebrated author and Books in Homes founder Alan Duff, and Pro-Vice Chancellor (Maori) of Auckland University Michael Brown, who put their names to a pile of fundie Christian anti-gay junk science in the name of “protecting the children”. There are many unanswered questions, not the least of which is “who the hell is John Sax?” and why did these prominent – and one assumes, intelligent – people trust him enough to write a letter on their behalf? And while everyone has been busy boiling Hubbard in oil, why have Norris and Co. got away almost completely unscathed? As the head of a company which probably employs more gay men than any other (despite John Banks' claims during the mayoral elections that he was the biggest gay-employer of all time), Norris' move was possibly more foolish than Hubbard's. If all the gay men at Air New Zealand walked off the job tomorrow, the airline would quite simply grind to a halt. How will Norris be able to look his gay employees, whom his company happily extends partner benefits to, in the eye when he's signed a letter saying he thinks they're more likely to abuse and murder their kids? And as for Alan Duff? We might have taken his concern for kids more seriously if he hadn't allowed his searing indictment of heterosexual Maori family breakdown “Once Were Warriors” to be trivialised by being made into a crappo white-bread musical (yes, a musical!) for the theatre-luvvies and middle classes. Garth George How much longer will one of our country's largest dailies continue to allow the unfettered rantings of this ugly old bigot, who has the cheek to accuse the gay community of “intolerance” and “heterophobia”. It's immensely frustrating for fence-sitters to bleat on about “tolerance for both sides of the debate” when gays and lesbians have to pick up the morning paper and be told they're responsible for increases in the murder rate – just one of George's crazier assertions. When the school bully is caught bashing up a kid in the playground, the teacher doesn't sit them both down and advocate “tolerance for both sides”. The bully would be hauled off to the principal's office for – in George's day at least – a decent thrashing. It was George, as editors of the Herald's Perspective pages, who printed a veiled death threat letter-to-the-editor against MP Tim Barnett which suggested he should be put down like a rabid dog. It was George who has been churning out anti-gay columns at the rate of almost one every four weeks in the last six months. It was George who recalled 1930's-style rhetoric against the Jews in his recent, most disturbing, column to date “Homosexual lobby poised to confront last bastion” (if you don't believe us, see our culture-jam on the front page in which we illustrate the similarities). When even Challenge Weekly, the fundamentalist Christian weekly newspaper, shies away from such extremism, one thing is clear – this man has no place in the pages of a modern daily newspaper. Time for a soothing herbal tea methinks! - Ed GayNZ.com - 31st December 2004