beautiful monsters

Life of (Bishop) Brian

War. Poverty. Climate Change. Rape. Murder. Pollution. Terrorism. But you know what the most dangerous evil is? According to Bishop Brian Tamaki, it’s the Homosexual Agenda.

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Well, having just said over on Siobhann's blog that I've given up on going to protests, I actually had fun out in Lower Hutt last night, with the pizza, and the singing; “We’re going to keep on loving boldly…” and “Swing low, sweet chariot, Queers are everywhere…” and “going to the chapel and we’re gonna get married…” My friend Sue was catching up on some knitting. A few of us talked about our own experiences of homophobic abuse, but then we moved on to more cheerful topics, like who was getting civilly united this year, and what we were going to where to the ceremony.

Meanwhile across the road Bishop Brian was giving out free copies of his DVD:
NEW ZEALAND:
A NATION UNDER SIEGE
A Social Disaster Has Hit Our Nation
30 minute Exposé
A Government Gone Evil
A Radical Homosexual Agenda
The Media: A Modern Day Witchcraft
The Retreat of Religion in New Zealand.

Wow, that’s some impressive subtitling.

I didn’t think that I could sneak in very inconspicuously with my rainbow socks and “IT’S NOT MY DE$TINY” t-shirt, but some others from our side of the road ventured across. Apparently he called us “social terrorists.” Yeah, cos singing our songs was right up there with blowing up buses full of people.

Anyway, I grabbed a copy of the DVD. I’m a sucker for anything free. (Actually, you don’t even need to front up for a disk, you can watch it on the bishoptamaki.org.nz website).

I really don’t get the appeal of Bishop Brian. I mean, compared to his peers in the United States of Jesusland, he gets an F minus for charisma. Sure, he’s obviously practiced his lines for the DVD, he doesn’t stop and start and stutter as much as he does in his sermons and TV broadcasts, but his presentation is so flat, the gaynz.com review compares him to the public service announcements from “South Park”. I just don’t get it. Where’s the hype? Where’s the passion? Why do so many people follow this man?

The content of the DVD is pretty scary. He uses homosexuals as a scapegoat for all society’s evils, including child prostitution, child abortions, violence and perversity on TV, the breakdown of families, and of course the incarceration of Swedish pastors. He declares New Zealand to be in a state of emergency, comparing this social crisis to the Boxing Day Tsunami.

Unbelievably, he uses a picture of our minister, Margaret, with the heading “The Retreat of Religion in New Zealand.” And he uses his favourite Martin Luther King quote, again, - with footage - despite the fact that the King Institute wrote Destiny a letter last time, saying that “one of Dr. King's closest advisor (Bayard Rustin) was gay and Dr. King did not believe in what was done to him and how he was treated here in the US at the time. For these reasons and many more--we cannot issue any sort of statement that would condone putting someone else's spirit and dignity down in favor of another. "

A Government Gone Evil
Bishop Brian says that our government is inherently evil, because most MPs didn’t swear on the bible, and because of various “isms”, including Philosophical Pluralism, which is “particularly dangerous” because it means that no one religion can pronounce itself as right and true and the others as false.

Then he goes on to say that “the driving force behind the Labour party is the homosexual agenda.” None of the people I spoke to tonight were very sure about what the homosexual agenda involved. Brian says that abortions and child prostitution are part of it. (Actually the Real Homosexual Agenda has already been exposed, and it is here. But back to Brian).

A Radical Homosexual Agenda
Brian is still going on about how two male MPs were photographed kissing in parliament, and this was published in the newspaper. Apparently this is still shocking.

His next gripe is about how “the homosexual lifestyle is now being taught to our children.” He has a couple of teenagers sitting with him, and he asks them if they can “be helpful” and tell us about some of the things they’ve been taught about homosexuality. The girl describes a poster in a classroom, with all these young people – about 16 years old she reckons, and it says “proud to be queer.” Brian interrupts “so it’s got proud to be queer with all these little children…” Huh? Most of the 12 year olds I know would object to being called “little children”, never mind the 16 year olds. Then the boys talks about a role playing exercise they did, where they imagined what it would be like if everyone was queer, and what it would feel like to be the minority. Brian says incredulously, “how old are you? 14? And they were doing this in the class? One of our schools in this country?” He keeps on saying “in our country as though he can’t believe it.

I really fear for the children in Destiny congregations who will one day realise that they are queer. One day their growing sense of unease is going to solidify, as they realise that all this demonising speech is directed at them. As if the suicide rate among queer youth wasn’t high enough already.

The Media: A Modern Day Witchcraft
Evidence for the media being witchcraft is:
Sexually explicit material on TV
The homosexual content has intensified, as is even emerging on child cartoons (?? Where, where?!)
New Zealand’s Chief Film Censor is… a self-confessed gay!

The Retreat of Religion in New Zealand
The section on religion is all about how many people said they were Christian in the census, and if we all voted for Destiny we could really make a difference. The last third of the DVD is just a big ad about how we should all vote for Destiny NZ, and it’s quite boring.

In fact the whole thing is relatively mild, compared to what Brian usually says in his sermons. Sometimes the DTV sermons are on the Destiny website, and in one of them he said he took his hat off to Lot for offering his daughter to be raped (because that would have prevented homosexual acts being committed).

Here’s another rant transcribed from the sermon:
“Listen to me now - listen to me carefully. You cannot - be born - a homosexual or a lesbian. You can be born - either a male - in the beginning of Genesis - or a female. When God created Adam - the man - he was acrid in his creation. He did not make a man and said well it could possibly be a female. So he thought, well, they will start doing that. So he says, I’ll fix that up. So he says I’ll make woman. Create woman. So there’s a difference between the male and the female. So in the book of Genesis he goes into the side of Adam. Takes a rib out, because, the reason being that these two shall be one. They will be responsible for procreation. Reproduction. Of their kind. And it’s the only way that two human beings, a male and a female, can produce children. Homosexuals can’t. Transsexuals, in a homosexual relationship, can’t. There’s no other relationship on earth that can procreate. Huh? So he took Eve out of the side of Adam, listen, the bible says, then he closed the way up. For the TV viewers, you’ll get it from the bible, from Genesis. He closed the way up. Why? To tell us that there can never be a woman trapped inside a man’s body. [Audience cheers] So if you’re born a male, you are a male. If you are born a female, you are a female. You very very very very rarely see females try to be men. Though there are some. I believe there’s a couple of twins. [There’s a long pause but no one seems to get the joke] Topp, ah, s, sorry, huh, I, hahaha. They are females wanting to be men. But listen, if they have a sex change, they comb their hair different, put a, put a, a black singlet on and gumboots, you are a woman. You are a woman. Look like a man, and pull your pants down and tell us, and say I’m a man, you are a woman. [audience laughs] May as well have a laugh while we’re going through this stuff cos it can get so depressing. Huh? But it’s mostly men who have lost their way, who wanna be, what is it? Drag queens? Go around in high-heeled shoes and lipstick on, and they – [puts on silly voice] Hello darling, what can I do for you today? [audience laughs] – big hairy arm, and hair out of his here, hasn’t had a throat change yet, so [deep voice] what d’ya want, darling? [audience laughs more] Limp wristed, ha, - why now come on, no, those people probably thinking why, why are you laughing, this is serious, no, well, you’ve got to, you know? Honestly, honestly, kids at home, dad coming home, mum? He is here he is, and he walks in, he’s got lipstick on, he’s got a big wig, he’s got high heels, a little – [silly voice] hello kids, it’s daddys just been home and I’ve been working at the brothel, which has been legalised. [audience boos and shouts] Hey, I couldn’t help myself. [audience claps] What do you think the kids are going to do? Looking at mum, looking at, well, what is it? [audience laughs] And little kids have gotta figure out, is that a man, or is that our dad, or is that a woman? Gee, has anybody thought about the kids? You ask the kids, and they haven’t even been taught yet, and they’ll say where’s daddy, where’s mummy? Not where’s daddy, where’s daddy? Or where’s mummy and where’s IT? [audience laughs] Huh? I mean the kids are getting confused, what is IT? What is THAT?! That’s your dad it’s just he’s dressed is differently and puts lipstick on, tries to talk a bit different, and, well, he’s looking, well hey, wonder why our kids have drugs? Tryina escape! I’m out of this! Give me some P! Some tinnies and some popaholics. I’m just gonna hang out with my other twisted friends. Why not, because the whole society’s getting perverted. Can’t even find out now what’s who’s a woman and who’s a man and what is THAT? Ooh, halleluia. God says it’s wicked.”

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The thing that frightens me most about Brian’s rantings and ravings, is the way that he completely dehumanises people like me.

Let us not forget that people have been burnt at the stake, and gassed in concentration camps, simply for loving people of the same gender.

With the holocaust still in living memory… if someone was referring to Jewish people as “IT” and “THAT”, blaming them for all the evil in society, and saying that they were possessed by demon spirits… would New Zealanders tolerate these kinds of statements? Would hundreds of them come to listen to him speak?

And yet.

“I met this beautiful blonde Jew. He invited me to spend the night. In the morning the Gestapo came…I showed my ID – not on the list. They took him to Auschwitz. It had a different value then, a night of love." – Gad Beck.

Posted by Fionnaigh at July 9, 2005 03:02 PM | TrackBack