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From GayNZ.com Community
Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, no. Plenty of candidates eagerly raised their hands to be included in our ten of the foulest things about 2006 list, and they are, in alphabetical order...  BOB CLARKSON MPBoorish to the max, Clarkson could not be left off this list after he likened the unacceptability of homosexuality to "picking ones nose in public." It's bad enough that the Tauranga area has been for years represented by the macho posturings of Winston Peters who has made it clear he has no time for gays, but now Clarkson shows he is of the same mold. What is it with Tauranga voters?  THE EXCLUSIVE BRETHRENPeople in windowless compounds shouldn't write cheques, especially when they collude with desperate conservative politicians with leaky email inboxes. Despite not voting and abstaining from social contact with the real world, this bunch of overseas-influenced religious nutters decided New Zealand was careening out of control into an oblivion of godless homosexuality and other social 'evils.' Sadly for them, gladly for us, the Brethren were revealed this year to have funded a massive campaign during the last general election to turn voters away from the more progressive and glbt-friendly parties like the Greens and Labour and Progressives, and into the icy bosom of the BrashNats.  KIWIFRUITWe're damned if we have to be abjectly grateful to NZ On Air, TV2 and Cream TV for the funding and airing of a locally made glbt 'lifestyle' TV series. The travesty that was Kiwifruit was meant to reflect our lives and culture but too often disappeared down the gurgler of showoff presenters and camp sophistry, tainted by the sub-agenda of gay folk prancing their egos across the screen for the infotainment of straight viewers. Is there a living soul who can prove the show's much-vaunted lesbian puppets weren't 'scripted' by straight women? Amanda Rees and a good special on 20 years of Law Reform were two of the miserably few highlights of a dismal series which hit rock bottom with 'Cooking with mince' and which NZ on Air and TV2 finally revealed was despised by most glbt people. Our GayNZ.com poll and message board postings revealed that months earlier!  ROSEMARY MCLEODWhat is it with Rosemary? Has some awful midlife crisis changed the bottle blonde one from the sensible and insightful Listener columist of years ago into the bitter and obsessive Sunday Star Times hag, er, hack of today? Rosemary seems to have decided that gays and lesbians are the root of all social evils and that our visibility in politics and other fields of endeavour shows we're working hard to destroy... well, everything! Memo to Rosemary: gays and lesbians have always been in politics and everywhere, we were just too fearful of the kind of brutality stirred up by sentiments like yours to be visible. PS: Times have changed!  NZ CRICKET AND WESTPACTRUST STADIUMIn the balmy Napier sun two straight party girls kissed each other for the benefit of the big screen cameras. The lads in the crowd loved it, but not so the security guard who threatened them with ejection from the grounds. Or Cricket NZ who backed him up. Or Wellington's WestpacTrust Stadium manager who made it clear that same-sex kissing would be unacceptable at forthcoming matches in his venue. It just got squirmily more and more depressing, until even a placatory statement by Westpac that they did not endorse such a homophobic stance and a late-run apology by the stadium manager couldn't get rid of the foul stench of homophobia surrounding this debacle.  NZ DATINGNZ's biggest internet dating website keeps its head in the sand and its R&D cheque book in the bottom drawer as it on the one hand accepts the NZAF's payments for its high-priced advertising (about $3,500 per week) and on the other does the absolute minimum to address the huge incidence of men using its site for unsafe sex hookups. With the rate of HIV infections still rising, and NZAF research and a GayNZ.com undercover operation clearly indicating that NZ Dating is a strong candidate for facilitating the biggest number of internet-related HIV infections amongst men who have sex with men in New Zealand, NZ Dating's minimalist approach to assisting its customers avoid this deadly disease is shameful. SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS In its hey day of the 1970s this 'organisation' tried promote spinster ex-nun Patricia Bartlett as the arbiter of what was morally healthy for New Zealanders. We're talking sexual morals here, not any of the real problems that affect NZ society like domestic violence, poverty, youth disaffection, et al. And since Pat's death the SPCS's main reason for staggering on has been the very existence of a seriously competent and rational gay man doing the job of Chief Censor. Month after month the SPCS wheels out barrow-loads of innuendo and invective against Bill Hastings and those who appoint and reappoint him, calling for his resignation again and again and again and again and again...  BI$HOP BRIAN TAMAKIKing George V (the one with a gay son, as it happens) thought that homosexuals surely went away and decently shot ourselves in his day. The Bishop of Bling, Brian Tamaki, outrageously advised the adoring John Banks and his talkback show listeners that in the good old days Maori as a matter of course killed their homosexual brothers and sisters. Not one bit of fact to back him up on that one of course, just another outpouring of pseudo-religious bile from the man whose camp mannerisms and obsession with homosexuality make one wonder if he would himself have survived long in those good old days.  JOHN TAMIHERETalkback host and sidelined politician Front Bums Tamihere continues his endless diatribes against homosexuals and homosexuality on Radio Live. His homophobic rants to his listeners and callers (most of whom sound like they are linked up through the Destiny Church or Maxim Institutes contact lists), endlessly repeating the "why can't I as a proudly heterosexual man say what I like, why do homosexuals and the NZ AIDS Foundation want to shut me up" mantra while pouring our a toxic sludge about everything from the unsavouriness of what we do in bed to how he'll make sure he knows his kids know how wrong homosexuality is, to.... well, there's too much sleazy invective to list here. Check some of our features linked below for a more in depth sampling, or tune into Radio Live and double his ratings!  IAN WISHARTContinuing his barrel-scraping efforts to trash any social trend or politician which does not conform with his intolerant world view, Wormtongue Wishart somehow decided that the televised sight of the PM's husband, Peter Davis, briefly kissing a male supporter in moment of high (non-sexual) euphoria as the most recent Labour General Election victory became apparent, was enough to brand Davis as gay. The massively self-promoting 'investigative reporter' Wishart was sadly unable to identify the other man as past-Labour candidate and continuing party supporter Ian Scott (who is undeniably gay) and smeared Davis in print. Clark responded on her husband's behalf with dignity. Remember when wearing a gold earring or a coloured business shirt were supposed to be undeniable evidence that a man was gay? Or when cropped hair branded one as a lesbian? "THAT'S SO GAY" How otherwise intelligent and perceptive media folk can jump on the gay-slurring bandwagon of "that's soooooo gay" is hard to fathom. Music and youth lifestyle channel C4's Clarke Gayford and comedian Oscar Kightley are just two to this year reinforce homophobia by using the word gay to mean naff or undesirable... as in "I'm not wearing that t-shirt, it's soooo gay." Memo to Oscar and Clarke and the rest: Just because anti-gay slurs occur in the schoolyard doesn't mean you have to climb on this insidious, bullying aspect of yoof culture. © Copyright GayNZ.com |
