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Editorial: Unlamented farewells

Thu 30 Jun 2005 In: Community

It's been a good month for New Zealand's gays and lesbians with three farewells of note making our country a freer, safer and more caring place. First to pack his bags was Garth George, he of the bristly ultraconservative Christianity expounded at every opportunity from the editorial pages of the NZ Herald. Under his influence the nation's largest daily newspaper published a seemingly unending stream of anti-gay opinion pieces from Christian fundamentalists, choosing to disguise their God-bothering backgrounds and lend them an aura of nonpartisan respectability. Letters espousing rigorous conservative Christian values instead of respect for diverse sexualities and lifestyles flew across George's desk and onto the Herald's Letters to the Editor page "faster than the Lord to a leper." Letters supportive of LGBT issues somehow got bogged down, frequently terminally. On retiring from the Herald, George did the honourable thing and publicly cast aside any affectation of journalistic impartiality, breadth of outlook and professional objectivity to become editor of the NZ's ailing organ of fundamentalist Christianity, Challenge Weekly. And in case you thought that Brian Tamaki had the mortgage on religious arrogance, George's new boss and publisher describes CW as "God's press release to the nation." May they both walk off into their sunset years together, secure in each other's moralistic embrace. Second to announce his departure was Ralph Norris, prominent businessman and dubious cosignatory of the now infamous Sax-Hubbard letter. You will recall that in that supposedly confidential letter to MPs soliciting votes against civil unions, Norris and his fellow plotters made the totally unfounded (unless you count the internet ravings of homophobic zealots) claim that gays and lesbians are more likely than others to murder and abuse children in our care. Mayor Hubbard, to his credit, has publicly stepped back from the letter, reached out to the glbt Aucklanders he represents, and is quietly educating himself about the realities of life for glbt people. Not so the CEO of Air New Zealand, a flagship NZ company with a remarkable number of gays in its workforce. From Norris there has been not a word, no retraction, no apology, not even a little sidestep. Nada. Zip. As he leaves for Australia to head one of that country's biggest financial institutions, the Commonwealth Bank - owner of NZ's ASB Bank of which he was once CEO - Norris's final publicly published word on gays and lesbians is that we should not be allowed access to legally recognised relationships because we're potential child abusers and murderers. Goodbye Ralph. Child abuse. Sigh. There is surely not one sane, sensible, caring person in New Zealand who feels a jot of regret at Reverend Graeme Capill's downfall and departure from his daily freedom to sexually molest and rape little girls as young as five. Five! For years, as he held his bible in one hand and the reins of Christian Heritage Party leadership in the other, he railed against homosexuals: our immorality, our undermining of society, our threat to 'the family', our supposed predilection for sexually preying on children. By day Capill would hold the religiously gullible, opportunistic and homophobic in thrall with his self-assumed God-given right to direct the moral and ethical lives of others, particularly gays and lesbians. By night he had his fingers in the pajama bottoms of vulnerable little girls who should have been able to trust and respect him. If any good has come of this disgusting Capill affair it is that it might make some New Zealanders look a little more closely at the motivations of those moral crusaders who aggressively point accusing fingers at minority groups. Like the stage magician who distracts us with a waving wand while his free hand deftly scoops up the hidden rabbit ready to be revealed, there is often more to anti-gay crusaders than meets the eye. But for our new sense of awareness three or more of society's most vulnerable members have paid a terrible price. Goodbye you hypocritical, spineless, godless predator. May you never return.     Jay Bennie - 30th June 2005

Credit: Jay Bennie

First published: Thursday, 30th June 2005 - 12:00pm

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