Why Does Brian Tamaki's Destiny Church Terrorise With Impunity in New Zealand?

White nationalist groups in the US have been terrorising LGBTQ communities for years.

And across Australia, there has been a marked and violent increase in anti-LGBTQ activity from neo-Nazis.

Neo-nazis protest transgender rights in Melbourne

Our LGBTQ communities are feeling vulnerable and fearful.

The US has now chosen an openly anti-transgender President, an anti-science and anti-vaccine Health Czar, and a neo-Nazi billionaire spokesperson who openly rallies for neo-Nazi parties around the world.

All weaved into a neat anti-environment, privatisation, libertarian ideology.

The movements they support are emboldened.

The world order is gone and NZ will need to shift alliances soon - and quickly.

The US is also actively trying to promote hate, division and lies through dismantling long standing speech protection laws - all under the guise of “free speech.”

We are not immune in New Zealand.

Free Speech Union - headed by folks such as Jordan Williams, Ani O’Brien and Chris Trotter - are pushing for NZ’s government to abolish hate speech laws too.

As with all alt-right wing tactics now, their push is consecutive, co-ordinated, and global.

And today, Brian Tamaki’s Destiny Church gang were doing their local work again - terrorising kids, parents, and the LGBTQ community that saw up to 30 mothers with babies and children barracaded into a small room, and bathrooms, out of fear.

It was a reading at Te Atatu library in Auckland for the Pride and Rainbow Event.

RNZ:

"In the room were toddlers, there was like a three-month-old baby, and halfway through the show we started to hear yelling and then this distant banging of the doors on the room that the performance was in.

"And children and parents started to get frightened and we were all looking at each other."

Two Redditors described their experience:

I’ve been meaning to write about Brian Tamaki since last year, but there are simply too many topics to cover everyday.

But he’s always there, always on my to-do list - with a recognition that this man and his gang are:

• Terrorising and hurting large parts of our country, yet -

• Exempt from gang patch bans - and advertise themselves like this:

  

• Are not condemned by any of our contry’s leaders for their vandalism and attacks - despite how high profile these acts were.

Note: Nazi symbols are also allowed under this government’s laws because they ostensibly “like to know who the idiots are” and feel that neo-Nazis are not as scary as Māori gangs.

What a terrible grasp of history - 17 million people were exterminated by the Nazis.

---

My Questions

These are the questions I have held onto for a while:

1. Have any of our government leaders stepped up during Tamaki’s antics to condemn him and Destiny Church? If not, why?

2. Have any of them sent an unequivocal message of support and acceptance and the intent to protect our LBTQ community? If not, why?

3. Have we heard Mark Mitchell condemn these crimes - or potential for crimes - as he did multiple times before the peaceful, historic Treaty Principles Bill Hikoi? Why not?

4. Why did Paul Goldsmith appoint individuals with a history of transphobic comments to NZ’s Human Rights Commissioner roles?

5. What type of arrangement does ACT have with Tamaki given Seymour promised Tamaki Destiny Church would have their charter school. Tamaki was demanding accountability of Seymour’s promises last year, but has gone quiet - which is not his style. So I can only hypothesise for myself that an arragement was made.

---

So, why the leniency towards Destiny Church?

These are some possibilities:

1. The government has a cohort of Ministers who voted for the antiquated, cruel gay conversion therapy. They consider themselves devout Christians, and may secretly sympathise with anti-LGBTQ activity.

These include Simeon Brown, Shane Reti, Melissa Lee, Todd McClay, Chris Penk etc.

2. New Zealand First have unequivocally hitched themselves to the anti-transgender movement. They would never condemn Brian Tamaki.

3. Brian Tamaki is an ally of this government. For example, Destiny Church are the ones who leaked allegations against Te Pāti Māori and Manurewa Marae - which has earned the government and right wing media plenty of negative headlines and aspersions about Māori.

Note: To Seymour’s left in the photo below too is Judith Collins. Tamaki is petitioning the Labour Government for money and Minister Little has come to hear them out.

4. Seymour publicly praised Tamaki as a “good man” and promised that should he get into government, Brian Tamaki’s “man up” would be back too. i.e. They are allies.

---

---

Where Does That Leave Us?

Back to The Past

It was 2011 when the United Nations passed the first gay rights resolution.

New Zealand recognises gay rights decades earlier - passing the Homosexual Law Reform Bill in 1986.

And in 1993 we passed the Human Rights Act -so it became illegal to discriminate on the grounds of sexual orientation.

In 2013, New Zealand became the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to allow same-sex marriage too.

i.e. We’ve always been proud, liberal early adopters of human rights.

We’ve come so far, we’ve done so well in recognising equality, and respecting individual choices and sexuality.

So why stop now?

---

It’s Not Us, It’s You

Except of course, you haven’t stopped.

It’s the people in power and that control so much of the airwaves that have.

And here, I am preaching to the choir.

So my next article will be what we can do in the face of all this helplessness.

Don’t lose hope - we all need each other - every person counts in this battle.