Thu, 24 Feb 2005

Press Release: Garth George and Tolerance www.happyclappinghomos.com 25.02.05

It is with a great deal of amusement that we at HappyClappingHomos.com read in Garth Georges latest opinion piece entitled “Time a lot of Pakeha bailed out of their comfort zones”(New Zealand Herald 24.02.05) that Mr George is concerned about the growing levels on intolerance in New Zealand society. Something he seems attribute to mainly White (Pakeha) males.

In his piece Mr George states:

“Several events lately indicate that far too many of us are becoming more and more one-eyed and intolerant and have lost that innate Kiwi ability to think outside the square. Many seem to feel threatened by anything which might alter or upset their set way of thinking and/or behaving and which might encourage them to expand, or to venture outside, their traditional comfort zones.”

We would like to point out to Mr George, and the readers of the Herald that obviously this tolerance does not extend to the Gay community. We would like to remind Mr George of his opinion Piece entitled “Homosexual lobby poised to confront the last bastion” (New Zealand Herald 02.12.04) in which he says with a certain degree of malice and paranoia that:

“But make no mistake. With years of preparation and experience behind them the homosexual lobby here is determined to storm the last - and most important - bastion of them all. That is the one that will give them the same legal rights as heterosexuals to enter into that most sacred of institutions, marriage, upon which the very foundations of human civilisation are and always have been built. “

While we at HappyClappingHomos.com appreciate a sense of irony, we would also like to remind Mr George that he is perhaps one of the last people in New Zealand who should be crying with respect to intolerance on the one hand while preaching it on the other. We would suggest to Mr George that he, as a Pakeha male (identified in his column as entrenched with one-eyed views of the world), should practice what he preaches. We look forward to Mr George’s’ fist tentative steps outside of his comfort zone.

-- HappyClappingHomos.com is a Wellington based gay rights web site. We keep an eye on the ramblings of Destiny and City Impact Churches’, Paul “City-Impact Pastor” Adams and the rest of UFNZ. We watch and question The Maxim Institute, Garnet Milne, the Society for Prevention of Film Festivals and the rest of the weird and whacky nuts who sprung up over the Civil Unions debate

We can be found at www.happyclappinghomos.com

ENDS

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