Monday, July 10, 2006

More on Homosexual Law Reform

My friend tells a story about her grandmother who we'll call Judith. Every time the Sallies came around Judith would empty her purse into their collection bucket, she'd grown up in a religious household and respected the work they did. In 1985 she stopped - she no longer gave them a cent - and told them that the reason was because of the homosexual law reform petition.

I feel the same way, when I was on diversion I wouldn't do volunteer work for the Salvation Army. I'd never donate anything to them - although I do occasionally buy stuff from their stores if it's cheap. You lead an organised hate campaign and I'm prepared to judge you for that for far more than 20 years.

But I'm prepared to give them credit for this: apologising:


On the eve of the 20th anniversary of Homosexual Law Reform, the head of the Salvation Army has apologised to the gay and lesbian communities for the Sallies' decision to administer the petition opposing law reform.

“We regret any hurt caused to people by the process of the petition and desire to build bridges to all sections of the community,” said Commissioner Garth McKenzie, Territorial Commander for the Salvation Army in New Zealand.
I'm not going to start giving the Sallies anything, but I might feel better about buying stuff from them.

There are a few good articles about that time.

I'd also storngly recommend listening to the Radio New Zealand documentary about the law reform debate (I can't link to it, because the site is down at the moment, but it was on at 4pm today so it shouldn't be hard to find). It was a truly excellent documentary - it let voices from the past speak for themselves.

It was upsetting and disturbing though. While I've heard about the Jerry Falwell's of the world who blame everything on homosexuality - they seem a little bit unreal and elsewhere - it's unnerving to hear them talking here (even in the past). There was one man who talked about hoping that terminal AIDS patients died soon, because he believed that the more people who died of AIDS the less likely parliament was to pass the bill. I just can't understand that there are people who think like that.

4 comments:

  1. There's plenty of them, sadly. And the really awful thing is that as soon as one of them speaks up, this horrible underbelly of bigots somehow feels free to jump up and join in. I don't understand it either.

    A couple of years ago, I remember the Sallies and Rape Crisis were collecting in the street on the same day. There was an article in the newspaper about how the Sallies raked in, like, ninety squillion zillion dollars and Rape Crisis got hardly anything. Bloody typical. The Sallies already do pretty well out of public donations, but they have this feel-good factor, whereas no one likes thinking about rape all that much. Rape Crisis just lacks a whole lot of warm fuzzies, I guess. I felt pretty sad at that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This article needs fixing, seems to be 2 bits missing.

    "she no longer gave them a cent - and told them that the reason was the role they"

    They what? It just goes on to the next para after that.

    "While I've heard about the Jerry Falwell's of the world who blame everything on homosexuality - it's extremely ."

    Extremely what?

    Woops!

    I still avoid the Sally Army where possible - they havent changed their views, they're just sorry they were so extremely vocal about them. It's an improvement, but only a small one.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous9:50 am

    I have a question - is there any possibility that an individual can disagree with homosexuality in a way that would not be defined as bigotry?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm going to go with no Ragged Glory.

    ReplyDelete