(for some reason this did not come up last night when posted... lets see what happens now)

Turei

I had another good day on prac, taking on some Reading and P.E. In general I am feeling like I haven’t taken up enough new challenges. It feels so much better than last week, which was now obviously just a mixture of settling in and slight disorganisation on both my associate’s and my sides.

I had an interesting discussion with my mother over dinner last night. She seems to like getting me into such discussions because for a while I seemed to be so neutral on many topics.

Yesterday, there was a protest rally in Wellington organised by the Destiny Church, run by an “American-styled” evangelist, Brian Tamaki. The message of the church is essentially Christian-fundamentalist grievance against the social liberalisation in New Zealand (“Enough is enough!”) and specifically wishing to prevent the passage of the Civil Unions Bill, which would allow homosexual couples who apply for a civil union to have the same legal rights as a married couple. They believe strongly that this will ruin the sanctity of marriage and harm the family. Both my mother and I thought this was highly specious logic and I think I have enough basis to out-argue proponents of those views.

BUT what we were most differing in opinion of was the “right” of the parents to pass on intolerance to their children. My mother thought that it was highly inappropriate for these parents to indoctrinate their children with hatred and homophobia.

I thought it was wonderful that parents are acting to pass on their values and morals. I think that it is good that children are first given some basis from which to build a worldview. It is only if you have an existing view will you be able to contrast it with another. It would be an egregious sin for a fundamentalist Christian to allow their offspring leeway to stray anyway, so it is unreasonable to expect otherwise. There was the issue that the children were off school for the march, I think that a march of conscience and morality is probably a good reason to not attend class and probably a good educating point about participating in society.

As abhorrent to me as their views are, I think that the existence of the Destiny Church or the National Front are essentially good thing as it gives a form to the prejudice. With form, it can be identified, addressed, and reasoned with. The devil you know is always better than the devil that lurks beneath.

On a side point of discussion, my mother was also highly upset that The Women’s Show at the Auckland Showgrounds gave free entry to men! I have no idea what a women’s day would sell but I raised the point that the opposite was done regularly by nightclubs (bring the babes, and paying men will come). Is this discrimination? Well, it is good business sense. My mother raised the point (strangely linked to the previous one) that gay men could take advantage of the Women’s Show…

Ah well...