Dr. Reisman’s study supports the conclusion that Alfred Kinsey’s research was contrived, ideologically driven and misleading. Any judge, legislator or other public official who gives credence to that research is guilty of malpractice and dereliction of duty.” Charles E. Rice, Professor, Notre Dame Law School

“Dr. Reisman: You can be very proud that you are included in Who’s Who in America, the directory The New York Times just recently hailed as “…that venerable guide to American achievement…” Once again, we’d like to congratulate you on your accomplishments.”  Who’s Who in America

Alfred Charles Kinsey (1894 – 1956), was an American biologist and professor of entomology and zoology who in 1947 founded the Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University, now called the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction. Kinsey’s research on human sexuality profoundly influenced social and cultural values in the United States and many other countries which went through the sexual revolution starting in the 1960s.

He is best known for his two controversial, very popular and widely influential publications Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948, reprinted 1998) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953, reprinted 1998).

Kinsey maintained that most people do not all clearly fall into the categories of exclusive heterosexuality or exclusive homosexuality, but that most can be placed somewhere between, in a continuum of sexual orientations with homo- and heterosexuality at the extremes and bisexuality at the midpoint. His detractors, such as the Family Research Council, claim that Kinsey’s work is a force that seeks to legitimize homosexuality, which the organization opposes. They tend to regard a homosexual orientation as a voluntary choice rather than an involuntary condition.

As a result of the work done by Kinsey and others, the American Psychiatric Association, in 1973, removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.

Judith A. Reisman (b. Judith Ann Gelernter, 1935, Newark, New Jersey) is best known for her criticism of the work of Alfred Kinsey. She argues that that many of Kinsey’s sexual viewpoints are not appropriate in the context of modern sex education. Reisman alleges that Kinsey and his staff gathered Kinsey’s data from pedophiles and sex offenders to produce some of the data in the Kinsey Reports. She draws attention to the fact that Tables 30-34 of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male report observations of orgasms in more than three-hundred children between the ages of five months and fourteen years. The Kinsey Institute maintains that Kinsey never had any sexual interaction with children, nor did he employ others to do so, and that he always interviewed children in the presence of their parents [no citation provided by source: Wikipedia].

Judith Reisman was born to a second-generation Jewish-American family in 1935 in Newark…. She gained an M.A. in 1976 and a PhD in 1980, both in Communications, at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Reisman has also been based at Haifa University in Israel.

She has authored and co-authored a number of books and scholarly articles including: The U.S. Department of Justice, Juvenile Justice study, Images of Children, Crime and Violence in Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler (1989), Kinsey, Crimes & Consequences (1998, 2000), Soft Porn Plays Hardball (1991), Kinsey, Sex and Fraud: The Indoctrination of a People (Reisman et al, 1990) and Kinsey’s Attic: The Shocking Story of How One Man’s Sexual Pathology Changed the World (Hardback).

Dr. Reisman is listed in numerous Who’s Who biographies such as: Who’s Who in Science & Engineering, International Who’s Who in Sexology, International Who’s Who in Education, Who’s Who of American Women and The World’s Who’s Who of Women. Her scholarly findings have had international legislative and scientific import in the United States, Israel, South Africa, Canada and Australia, while The German Medical Tribune and the British medical journal, The Lancet demanded that the Kinsey Institute be investigated, saying:

The Kinsey reports (one in 1948 on males and the companion five years later) claimed that sexual activity began much earlier in life…. and displayed less horror of age differences and same-sex relationships than anyone at the time imagined. It was as if, to follow Mr. Porter again, “Anything goes”. In Kinsey, Sex and Fraud, Dr. Judith A. Reisman and her colleagues demolish the foundations of the two reports … Kinsey et al … questioned an unrepresentative proportion of prison inmates and sex offenders in a survey of “normal” sexual behavior. Presumably some at least of those offenders were also the sources of information on stimulation to orgasm in young children that can only have come from pedophiles–or so it must be hoped. Kinsey…. has left his former co-workers some explaining to do. The Lancet, (Vol. 337: March 2, 1991, p. 547).

Reisman has guest lectured at numerous educational establishments, including Princeton, Georgetown, Tel Aviv University and the Rutherford Institute, as well as to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Kinsey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_A._Reisman

http://www.drjudithreisman.com/about_dr_reisman.html#cv

For more about Dr. Reisman see her website:

http://www.drjudithreisman.com/about_dr_reisman.html

Brief CV: http://www.drjudithreisman.com/about_dr_reisman.html#cv

Academic Positions held by Dr Reisman.

Adjunct faculty, George Mason University, 1990

Research Full Professor, The American University, 1983-85

Asst./Assoc. Prof. (Martze) University of Haifa, Israel, 1981-83

Special Note:

In 2003 The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction Inc, based at Indiana University and founded in 1947, issued a very limited response to Dr Reisman’s serious allegations against Dr Alfred Kinsey:

See: http://www.indiana.edu/~kinsey/about/contro-03.html

If you doubt Reisman’s allegations, check out the facts in Kinsey’s own work Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) p. 180. If you do not have access to a copy see www.drjudithreisman.org

The Society is most grateful to the Wellington-based gay rights activist, Calum Bennachie, for producing a full transcript of the video – excerpts of which are reproduced below to address the question under consideration. Mr Bennachie prepared the transcript (in the public domain) as part of a voluminous submission to Film and Literature Board of Review (“the Board”), in which he successfully sought, on behalf of Human Rights Action Group (Wellington), to have this video banned.

Excerpts from Living Word Video Gay Rights/Special Rights

(Note: The video has now been classified “unrestricted” by the Board following a unanimous Court of Appeal decision to quash the flawed High Court decision that had upheld the ban by the Board).

Lou Sheldon: "Homosexuals have equal rights under the First Amendment, the Fourteenth Amendment, (CUT TO A SCENE OF TWO WHITE MEN SEATED UNDER A TREE, HOLDING EACH OTHER. ONE IS DRESSED IN A SINGLET AND SHORTS, THE OTHER IN SHORTS ONLY) and the State Constitutions of every State in which they reside. (CUT TO A SCENE OF TWO WHITE WOMEN LINE DANCING WITH EACH OTHER). But the issue here today is special rights. A special category of protection. (CUT TO LOU SHELDON WITH BLACK MEN BEHIND HIM. THE TITLE SAYS "LOU SHELDON CHAIRMAN, TRADITIONAL VALUES COALITION"). They want to be elevated from a behaviour based lifestyle, to a true minority status that would then give them special rights."

Ralph Reed: [EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CHRISTIAN COALITION]. "No one should (FADE IN TITLE "RALPH REED… ") have special rights or privileges, or minority status because of their sexual behaviour. (FADE OUT TITLE) We don’t have it for people who are polygamists, we don’t have it for people who have affairs on their wive’s or husband’s …"Peter Marshall: [CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORIAN]. Voice over: "If you give, homosexuals special rights in America, first of all you open a Pandora’s Box … to every deviant behaviour group logically being able to line up and bang on the same door, and insist on, special rights for themselves. You have totally destroyed, … really, … a realistic understanding of Human Rights."

Edwin Meese: [FORMER UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL]. "Homosexuals [in ordinary conduct] today, ah, should not be discriminated against, and generally are not. Ah, they’re entitled to the same constitutional rights of, ah, free speech; ah, if anything, ah, they have used, ah, free speech to the point, ah, where their conduct is [probably] offensive, ah, to most people."

For Full Transcript of GayRight/Special Rights video go to:

http://www.christian-apologetics.org/html/Gay_rights_Special_rights.htm

For Full Transcript of the other Living Word video AIDS: What You Haven’t Been Told go to:

http://www.christian-apologetics.org/html/Aids.htm

"A clear majority of the American public opposes same-sex marriage," says Stanley Kurtz of the Hudson Institute. "And yet this opposition, though real, is by-and-large silent. So striking is this general silence, that one cannot help but wonder about the reasons for it."

To read complete article go to:

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/KurGayM.htm

Also see:

Gay Marriage — and Marriage
Sam Shulman

"…In a gay marriage, one of two men must play the woman, or one of two women must play the man. "Play" here means travesty–burlesque. Not that their love is a travesty; but their participation in a ceremony that apes the marriage bond, with all that goes into it, is a travesty. Their taking-over of the form of this crucial and fragile connection of opposites is a travesty of marriage’s purpose of protecting, actually and symbolically, the woman who enters into marriage with a man. To burlesque that purpose weakens those protections, and is essentially and profoundly anti-female."

To read complete article go to:

http://orthodoxytoday.org/articles2/SchulmanGayMarriage.php

“You’re a homophobe!”

In today’s dominating climate of political correctness, that label is heard increasingly often, along with the related terms homophobia and homophobic. But what is homophobia? Who uses the term and why? Little has been written on it from any but the gay rights perspective. Some diversity of opinion is overdue.

The first use of the word homophobia is credited to George Weinberg who coined the term in the late 1960s, later discussing it at length in a book in 1972. The first use in print, however, was by activists Jack Nichols and Lige Clarke in their May 23rd column in Screw magazine, 1969. ¹

Byrne Fone in Homophobia: A History defines it as “Antipathy to [homosexuals] – and condemnation, loathing, fear, and proscription of homosexual behavior..”² David Plummer spends the first ten pages of One of the Boys:Masculinity, Homophobia, and Modern Manhood ³ explaining why he is not comfortable with the term homophobia, seeming to prefer anti-homosexual bias. When pressed in person for a definition he responded “Homophobia is present whenever you hear ‘faggot’ or ‘poofter’ being used.” ⁴

Perhaps the leading researcher and writer on homophobia from a gay perspective is Greg Herek, and he clearly expresses his reservations about homophobia, preferring the term sexual prejudice:

Sexual prejudice refers to negative attitudes toward an individual because of her or his sexual orientation. In this article, it is used to characterize heterosexuals’ negative attitudes toward (a) homosexual behavior; (b) people with a homosexual or bisexual orientation; and (c) communities of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. Sexual prejudice is a preferable term to homophobia because it conveys no assumptions about the motivations underlying negative attitudes, locates the study of attitudes concerning sexual orientation within the broader context of social psychological research on prejudice, and avoids value judgments about such attitudes. ⁵

For different reasons homophobia has been condemned, as inaccurate and not always appropriate for the purpose by gay writers and activists, and as a deliberately misleading and sinister smear by those opposed to the gay agenda. Thoughtful writers on both sides agree that the word rarely if ever means a debilitating irrational fearfulness of homosexuals or homosexuality, a meaning strictly required by psychiatric nomenclature. Probably for those very reasons, its broadness and its guilt-inducing and mental illness connotations, the word has served, and continues to serve, a most useful political purpose and despite its limitations is not likely to be abandoned any time soon.

Indeed, in an ironic reversal which once saw homosexuals as suffering from a psychiatric illness, homosexuality has been eliminated as a psychiatric classification (since 1973) and homophobia is increasingly being portrayed as a debilitating and dangerous disorder, amenable to and in need of treatment. Most people are said to suffer from it, even homosexuals, who have picked up society’s disapproval of homosexuality and internalised it. This is referred to as internalised homophobia, a treatable disorder said to be responsible for a wide range of pathologies and dysfunction among homosexuals, including suicide, excessive alcohol and drug taking, depression, unsafe sex leading to HIV, inappropriate marriages and poor performance at school.

Now psychiatrists and clinical psychologists, when faced with a homosexual unhappy over his homosexuality, are directed to deal with the internalised homophobia and under no circumstances are to assist the client towards a heterosexual orientation. That would be simply further intensifying the self-hatred he has picked up from society. At no point are these professionals allowed to entertain the idea that the client may wish to become heterosexual and his stated dissatisfaction with homosexuality be taken at face value.

Any discussion of homophobia is limited unless it is seen in a context of allied terms, all with varying degrees of overlap e.g. discrimination, bigotry, anti-homosexual prejudice, heterosexism, heteronormativity, oppression, homohatred, sexuality victimisation, and homonegativity. Often these terms are used interchangeably in the literature.

Terms that indicate a countering of homophobia include affirming diversity, inclusiveness, and homopositivity. More recently, phrases like Making schools/workplaces safe for all sexual orientations are code for instituting anti-homophobia workshops and pro-homosexual programmes.

Almost all users of homophobia are writing from a gay, queer theorist, feminist or liberal perspective – or a combination of these. Some conservative commentators argue that homophobia and related terms are a key part in an agenda to depict homosexuality as an equally valid and healthy option to heterosexuality. They see anti-homophobia campaigns as a continuation of the access AIDS first gave gay activists to the schools:

Pro-homosexual advocates gained access to the schools in the late 1980′s by capitalizing on fear about AIDS – and have increasingly been using the public schools as a forum to educate children to accept the normalization of homosexual conduct, same-sex marriage and parenting, and to promote civil-rights status based on homosexual conduct…. Those who disagree with any objective of homosexual advocates – or simply think it wrong to use other people’s children to engage in social or political indoctrination – are perilously close to losing the right to even voice their concerns on this issue. All opposition to homosexuality or homosexual political objectives is routinely viewed now as “homophobia,” and many would designate all such speech “hate crime.” ⁶

The words ‘safe’ and ‘safety’ are key components in the drive to challenge homophobia, especially in schools. Kevin Jennings, founder of the US-based Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) noted in 1995 that capturing the language virtually captures the debate. Not wishing to be blind-sided the way the abortion lobby was by its opponents’ calling themselves ‘pro-life’, he explains:

We immediately seized upon the opponent’s calling card – safety – and explained how homophobia represents a threat to students’ safety creating a climate where violence, name-calling, health problems, and suicide are common. Titling our report, ‘Making Schools Safe for Gay and Lesbian Youth,’ we automatically threw our opponents onto the defensive and stole their best line of attack. This framing short-circuited their arguments and left them back-pedaling from day one.

Finding the effective frame for your community is the key to victory. It must be linked to universal values that everyone in the community has in common. In Massachusetts, no one could speak up against our frame and say, ‘Why, yes, I do think students should kill themselves’; this allowed us to set the terms for the debate.⁷

The first major enunciation of a plan to fight homophobia came in 1987 with an article in a homosexual magazine, by Marshall Kirk and Erastes Pill, “The Overhauling of Straight America”.⁸ Reading through the web-available document the reader can judge for himself how closely it has been followed and how successful this incredibly candid blueprint for a homosexual revolution has been over the past 14 years. Some key excerpts

The first order of business is desensitization of the American public concerning gays and gay rights. To desensitize the public is to help it view homosexuality with indifference instead of with keen emotion… A large-scale media campaign will be required in order to change the image of gays in America….

Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible. The principle behind this advice is simple: almost any behavior begins to look normal if you are exposed to enough of it at close quarters and among your acquaintances… the imagery of sex should be downplayed and gay rights should be reduced to an abstract social question as much as possible… If gays are presented, instead, as a strong and prideful tribe promoting a rigidly nonconformist and deviant lifestyle, they are more likely to be seen as a public menace that justifies resistance and oppression. For that reason, we must forego the temptation to strut our “gay pride” publicly when it conflicts with the Gay Victim image…..

In admonishing gays against ‘in your face’ sexuality Kirk and Pill have been less than persuasive with their fellow-activists – although reportedly this year’s Auckland Hero Parade was less raunchy than usual, with one bisexual dominatrix float “whipped off” to maintain propriety. ⁹

While public opinion is one primary source of mainstream values, religious authority is the other. When conservative churches condemn gays, there are only two things we can do to confound the homophobia of true believers. First, we can use talk to muddy the moral waters. This means publicizing support for gays by more moderate churches, raising theological objections of our own about conservative interpretations of biblical teachings, and exposing hatred and inconsistency. Second, we can undermine the moral authority of homophobic churches by portraying them as antiquated backwaters, badly out of step with the times and with the latest findings of psychology….

In any campaign to win over the public, gays must be cast as victims in need of protection so that straights will be inclined by reflex to assume the role of protector… First, the mainstream should be told that gays are victims of fate, in the sense that most never had a choice to accept or reject their sexual preference. The message must read: “As far as gays can tell, they were born gay, just as you were born heterosexual or white or black or bright or athletic. Nobody ever tricked or seduced them; they never made a choice, and are not morally blameworthy”… The second message would portray gays as victims of society. The straight majority does not recognize the suffering it brings to the lives of gays and must be shown: graphic pictures of brutalized gays; dramatizations of job and housing insecurity, loss of child custody, and public humiliation: and the dismal list goes on…..

Give protectors a just cause. A media campaign that casts gays as society’s victims and encourages straights to be their protectors must make it easier for those to respond to assert and explain their new protectiveness. Few straight women, and even fewer straight men, will want to defend homosexuality boldly as such…Our campaign should not demand direct support for homosexual practices, should instead take anti-discrimination as its theme. The right to free speech, freedom of beliefs, freedom of association, due process and equal protection of laws – these should be the concerns brought to mind by our campaign.

These rights and anti-discrimination issues were certainly very much in the minds of the NZ Law Commission in its recent Report where it dealt with homosexual adoption of children. Continuing, Kirk and Pill advocate short clips such as this description to elicit sympathy and support:

The camera slowly moves in on a middle-class teenager, sitting alone in his semi-darkened bedroom. The boy is pleasing and unexceptional in appearance, except that he has been roughed up and is staring silently, pensively, with evident distress. As the camera gradually focuses in on his face, a narrator comments: It will happen to one in every ten sons. As he grows up he will realize that he feels differently about things than most of his friends. If he lets it show, he’ll be an outsider made fun of, humiliated, attacked. If he confides in his parents, they may throw him out of the house, onto the streets…

[This] would economically portray gays as innocent and vulnerable, victimized and misunderstood, surprisingly numerous yet not menacing…. Make the victimizers look bad. At a later stage of the media campaign for gay rights [ ] it will be time to get tough with remaining opponents. To be blunt, they must be vilified…. Our goal here is twofold. First, we seek to replace the mainstream’s self-righteous pride about its homophobia with shame and guilt. Second, we intend to make the antigays look so nasty that average Americans will want to dissociate themselves from such types.

But not everyone has bought into the shame and guilt that are intended to be part of the ‘homophobia package’. Earlier this year U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas ¹⁰ made a plea for courage, for standing up and saying what needs to be said in public debate on important questions. He noted that the obstacles and disincentives are many.

It became clear in rather short order that on the very difficult issues such as race there was no real debate or honest discussion. Those who raised questions that suggested doubt about popular policies were subjected to intimidation. Debate was not permitted. Orthodoxy was enforced. When whites questioned the conventional wisdom on these issues, it was considered bad form; when blacks did so, it was treason.

On the difficult question of homosexuality there is probably even less debate or honest discussion. Those who raise policy questions on HIV/AIDS and related health matters, on the inclusion of homosexuality in the school curriculum, on the use of the Human Rights Act and other legislation to regard sexual orientation as a protected category are silenced. Debate is not encouraged. The new orthodoxy is enforced. When heterosexuals question the conventional wisdom, it is homophobia. When occasionally some homosexuals do, it is considered self-hatred, internalised homophobia. Thomas again:

A good argument diluted to avoid criticism is not nearly as good as the undiluted argument, because we best arrive at truth through a process of honest and vigorous debate. Arguments should not sneak around in disguise, as if dissent were somehow sinister. One should not cowed by criticism…. by yielding to a false form of “civility,” we sometimes allow our critics to intimidate us. As I have said, active citizens are often subjected to truly vile attacks; they are branded as mean-spirited, racist, Uncle Tom, homophobic, sexist, etc. To this we often respond (if not succumb), so as not to be constantly fighting, by trying to be tolerant and nonjudgmental—i.e., we censor ourselves. This is not civility. It is cowardice, or well-intentioned self-deception at best.

What else might explain our reticence, our unwillingness in open forum to call it as we see it? He agrees with an earlier writer:

Honesty on questions of race is rare in the United States. So many and unrecognized have been the injustices committed against blacks that no one wishes to be unkind, or subject himself to intimidating charges. Hence, even simple truths are commonly evaded.

Thomas himself adds:

This insight applies with equal force to very many conversations of consequence today. Who wants to be denounced as a heartless monster? On important matters, crucial matters, silence is enforced.

Similarly, it must be admitted that so many and unrecognised injustices have been committed against homosexuals that no one wishes to be unkind, or subject himself to the intimidating charge of homophobia. Again, silence is enforced. Kirk and Madsen made this very point many years earlier – that homosexual tactics must play on the straight fear of being mistakenly taken for a bigot.¹¹

While homophobia was of some concern in the United States a decade ago and considerable efforts were being made to combat it, in this country it was hardly mentioned and then mainly by community organisations with a strong feminist inclination, such as Women’s Refuge ¹² and the Family Planning Association. Officially, there was little if any homophobia.

For example, in 1990 the then NZ Department of Health published Adolescent Sexuality: The Report of the Taskforce on Adolescent Sexuality. ¹³. In its 80-odd pages there is no mention of homophobia or any similar term. Instead, apart from a short gay and lesbian perspective in the Appendix, the report is almost entirely concerned with STDs, pregnancy, Maori and Polynesians perspectives, abortion and contraception, and male aggression and power inequalities. Verbal and physical abuse are discussed but entirely within the context of traditional playground bullying and the use of terms that demean and devalue females. In short, the report’s gender concerns are a fair reflection of the preoccupations of political correctness at that time in New Zealand, males as oppressors and females as victims, all within a heterosexual context.

Now, ten years later, ‘homophobia’ is finally official – as exemplified in the Ministry of Education’s Health and Physical Education in the New Zealand Curriculum for secondary students:

Students will demonstrate an understanding of how attitudes and values relating to difference influence their own safety and that of other people, for example, through considering bullying, harassment, racism, sexism, homophobia, and rape and in relation to physical activity and sports choices. ¹⁴

That is significant as well for the way in which homophobia is linked very clearly to the other oppressions. Kirk and Madsen regarded this as an undesirable tactic – but as the last decade has shown, this is one of their pleas that was ignored. They branded as bad advice the exhortation by another writer:

Show throughout [public debates on gay rights] that you identify with all those who are persecuted unjustly, that you advocate rights for all human beings, not just homosexuals. Talk about racism, sexism, militarism, poverty, and all the conditions that oppress the unempowered. A victory for any oppressed group is a victory for all.¹⁵

Those who are given to finding homophobia everywhere share with those who are preoccupied with racism and sexism a belief that a multitude of people are among the oppressed, that the homophobia constitutes the oppression, and that they are further linked in their victimhood since the oppressor is often simultaneously sexist, racist and homophobic. Educators running anti-homophobia workshops are sometimes advised to make explicit the connections between racism and homophobia, and sexism and homophobia. ^{16 17}

David Horowitz explains how oppression is viewed through the radical activist lens:

Oppressor and oppressed, victimizer and victim – these dichotomies are indispensable categories of radical thought. The radical world-view divides humanity into the oppressed who suffer as the objects of the historical process and the oppressors who inflict the process on everyone else. Power is always an alien force. For the traditional Marxist, the enemy system that organizes and distributes power is capitalism; for the radical feminist, it is patriarchy; and for the queer theorist, it is “hetero-normativity”. Liberation can only lie in the annihilation of the system that creates the antagonism. Liberation is conceived not as a modification or even a reversal of traditional order, but its transcendence. For the Marxist radical, the liberated future is the classless society; for the queer radical, it is the genderless planet. ¹⁸

Of concern to many parents is the question, what is happening in New Zealand schools regarding homophobia? As well as the very recent obligation to cover it under sexuality education within the new Health Curriculum, noted above, there have been resources and courses available for some time.

For example, many secondary schools since 1994 have been using Family Planning’s Affirming Diversity: An Educational Resource on Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Orientations and their Challenges and Change: A Sexuality Education Programme for Adolescents, while from 1989 Rainbow Youth in Auckland (formerly known as ALGY) have provided services including school workshops. The Family Planning Association have run many workshops and seminars for teachers throughout the 90s. From the flyer for one such in 1990:

Accepting Differences in Sexual Orientation: Not all students are heterosexual. A proportion of adolescents in any class will be gay or lesbian. Experience has shown that some young people express disgust at the thought of homosexuality. The effect on students who identify as gay or lesbian can be devastating. Many New Zealand teenage suicides are gay adolescents. If we are to contribute to building self esteem in all our students, homophobia needs to be addressed. This workshop will introduce activities and classroom strategies which will enable teenagers to be more accepting of differences in sexual orientation.

Currently, the Ministry of Education’s NCEA Achievement Standard 1.5 for 2002 as presently drafted under Demonstrating Knowledge of Sexuality Issues reads:

A student in your class is constantly harassed on the way to school, and at school, by students. He is also called names such as ‘poof’, ‘fairy’, ‘faggot’ etc. He is a quiet student who is very talented at music and who is always top in science and maths tests. Explain, using the questions provided, what needs to happen to make school a safer and more helpful place for students in such situations. ¹⁹

This task highlights the repeated, some might say obsessional, use of the safety aspect, discussed earlier, in the campaign against homophobia. The safety theme is again to the fore in a staff guidelines pamphlet from the secondary teachers’ union (PPTA) about to be released into all schools: Making Schools Safe for People of Every Sexuality. ²⁰

A new and expensive resource for Years 12 and 13, funded by the Health Funding Authority and published by the Christchurch College of Education,²¹ devotes considerable space to homosexuality and a radical questioning of gender and queer theory issues, along with sections on prostitution and pornography. Activities focus on safety, ‘discrimination and victimisation’ and increasing the acceptance of homosexuality. The challenge is said to be to “disrupt [ ] the binary construction of homosexuality/heterosexuality and to validate the full range of human sexual preferences.” (p.52)

The degree to which this resource is widely used without significant student or parent protest will be a measure of how far this country has moved down the humanist and liberal road.

Last year the New Zealand AIDS Foundation, with assistance from the Human Rights Commission and the Health Funding Authority, instituted anti-homophobia workshops for schools and workplaces under the heading He Aha Te Utu? What is the Cost? The Resource Kit states it is “part of an education campaign addressing homophobia (prejudice or discrimination against gay people), and how these issues impact on the Hau Ora of gay men, particularly in relation to HIV infection.” From the flyer and Resource Kit:

For gay people homophobic behaviour manifests:

• • In the form of prejudice and discrimination often preventing people from seeking health care and advice, thus homophobia is an important barrier to the efficacy of HIV health promotion work;

• • By impacting on the mental and emotional health of gay people, resulting in low self-esteem, low self worth, depression, anxiety, social isolation and loneliness;

• • Adversely affecting gay people’s desire and ability to confidently negotiate safer sexual relationships;

• • Placing gay people at greater risk of substance abuse, self harm and suicide

The workshop goal is to reduce homophobic behaviour by:

• • Increasing understanding about what homophobia is.

• • Creating a more supportive environment for msm [men who have sex with men].

• • Creating safer schools and health organisations for msm. ²²

To which the question arises – will all this new emphasis in schools on normalising homosexuality using the justification of safety and tackling ‘homophobia’ create safer schools for your sons and daughters? A group of concerned parents in Seattle put some relevant questions to their school District administrators:

[We agree] with the District that all children and their families should be safe from harrassment and physical harm on school grounds, and that differences between children and families should be tolerated. The District was unable to show how teaching affirmation of homosexuality would accomplish this, or how success would be measured, but they remain unyielding in their commitment to this plan. School officials flatly reject the proposal that zero-tolerance for all name-calling and bullying behavior be enforced without teaching affirmation and acceptance of homosexuality.

The District was also unable to provide any guidance as to how the wishes of parents who objected to their children’s exposure to homosexual affirming material were to be honored, and none was offered. ²³

In New Zealand, with the right of principals and Boards to opt out of sexuality education about to be removed under changes to the Education Amendment (No.2) Bill, with the distinct possibility that even parents’ right to withdraw their children from such education will soon be under threat, should not these become real concerns for parents here as well?

Bibliography

1 Herek, Gregory M. “The Psychology of Sexual Prejudice” Current Directions in Psychological Science 2000, V.9(1) 19-22, footnote at p.19

2 Fone, Byrne. Homophobia: A History Metropolitan/Henry Holt NY. 2000 p.3

3 Plummer, David. One of the Boys: Masculinity, Homophobia, and Modern Manhood Haworth/Harrington Park Press NY. 1999 pp.1-10

4 David Plummer, pers. comm. Auckland 6 July 2000

5 Herek, op.cit. p.19

6 quoted in: First AIDS Education, Then “Safe Schools,” Then Gay Advocacy at http://www.narth.com/docs/firstaids.html
7 at http://www.massnews.com/1200fist3.htm Also quoted in: Homosexuals Recruit Public School Children: Activists use issues of ‘safety’, ‘tolerance’, and ‘homophobia’ as tactics to promote homosexuality in our nation’s schools. Rev Louis P. Sheldon at:

http://www.traditionalvalues.org/tvcsr1100.html
Jennings is also quoted at http://www.frc.org/iss/hsx/retrieve.cfm?get=PD98I1

8 Kirk, Marshall and Pill, Erastes. “The Overhauling of Straight America” Guide, November 1987. Variously on the web e.g. http://www.traditionalvalues.org/eha.html

The ideas there were much expanded in the prophetically titled After the Ball: How America Will Conquer its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s (1989) by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen (Plume/Penguin NY 1990 printing)

9 “No Dominatrix in Hero Parade! Float Whipped Off!” Helen Robinson, express, 15 February 2001 p.3

10 Thomas, Clarence. Francis Boyer Lecture to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 13 February, 2001 Washington D.C. http://www.aei.org/boyer/thomas.htm
11 Kirk and Madsen. op.cit. pp.150-153

12 National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuges Inc. Homophobia/Heterosexism: Lecture & Workshop Beryl Fletcher NCIWR AGM June 1989

13 NZ Department of Health. Adolescent Sexuality: The Report of the Taskforce on Adolescent Sexuality Wellington March 1990

14 Health and Physical Education in the New Zealand Curriculum Ministry of Education, Wellington 1999 at p.22. Level 5 Strand C Relationships with Other People 2. Identity, Sensitivity and Respect.

Also at: http://www.minedu.govt.nz/curriculum/health/statement/healthpe.pdf

15 Kirk and Madsen. op.cit. p.180

16 Thompson, Cooper. A Guide to Leading Introductory Workshops on Homophobia The Campaign to End Homophobia, Massachussetts, 1990 pp.23-25

17 National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuges. Homophobia/Heterosexism: Lecture & Workshop op.cit. pp.2-6

18 Horowitz, David. The Politics of Bad Faith The Free Press NY 1998, p.156

19 NCEA Internal assessment resource Sexuality Issues: Level 1 2002 Health/1/5 – A version 2, p.4 at: http://www.tki.org.nz/r/ncea/health1_5Av2_2feb01.doc
20 NZ Post-Primary Teachers’ Assn. Safe Schools Taskforce: Making Schools Safe for People of Every Sexuality Wellington 2001 as discussed in “Making Schools Safe for Everybody” PPTA News V.22(2) March 2001 pp.4-5

21 Tasker, Gillian (ed). Social & Ethical Issues in Sexuality Education: A Resource for Health Education Teachers of Year 12 and 13 Students Christchurch College of Education 2000 pp.15-60

22 New Zealand AIDS Foundation. Anti-Homophobia Workshop, flyer and Resource Kit, He Aha Te Utu? What is the Cost? 2000

23 quoted from: First AIDS Education, Then “Safe Schools,” Then Gay Advocacy (undated) at http://www.narth.com/docs/firstaids.html

A LESBIAN couple in Australia are suing their doctor after they had twin girls from an in-vitro fertilisation procedure when they wanted only one child.

The two women are seeking more than $400,000 (NZ$470,000) in damages to help pay for the cost of raising the second child, including private school fees.

They say they made it clear to their doctor that they wanted only one baby. The twins are now three years old.

The civil case, which is the first of its kind in Australia, has prompted intense debate about the value of children and role of parents.

“The litigation involving twins already three years old undermines the importance of parenthood,” conservative government senator Guy Barnett said yesterday.

“We seem more intent on preserving and pandering to the wishes of adults than we are in protecting the rights of children.”

He wants same-sex couples and unmarried women to be banned from access to publicly funded IVF services, sparking a new moral debate ahead of national elections, due any time.

The case is being heard in Canberra. Letters published in the Canberra Times newspaper have overwhelmingly criticised the legal action after the birth of two healthy children.

“The child’s identity is subsumed to the whim of the mother who has bought the sperm and paid the IVF clinic,” The Australian columnist Angela Shanahan wrote in her newspaper. “Ultimately the result is the child as product, robbed of its unique identity.”

The court has ordered the suppression of the two women’s identities.

They used donor sperm from a Danish doctor for the IVF treatment in 2003.

The court has been told that they signed a consent form to allow two embryos to be implanted, but that they specifically told their specialist they wanted only one embryo implanted.

The court was told the births had created considerable stress within the couple’s relationship.

However, lawyers for the doctor said almost every couple who had a child went through similar strain.

Source: The Dominion Post. 21/09/07, B3.

UK Telegraph 06 September 2007

A council’s political correctness allowed a pair of homosexual foster parents to sexually abuse children in their care, a report has concluded. Managers and social workers were reluctant to investigate Craig Faunch and Ian Wathey for fear of being accused of prejudice. Instead, they were viewed as "trophy carers" who, by virtue of their sexuality, had a "badge" which made their actions less questionable.

A mother of eight-year-old twins raised concerns about them with social services after finding a photograph of one of the boys using the lavatory. But the authorities took no action, accepting that the two men had been "naive and silly". In reality, they had been using the boys for sexual gratification within months of being approved as carers by the Labour-run Wakefield Metropolitan District Council. Faunch, 42, and Wathey, 33, were jailed last year for a string of offences against four boys, aged between eight and 14, at their home in Pontefract, West Yorks. The victims were among 18 children placed with the pair, Yorkshire’s first homosexual foster parents, between August 2003 and January 2005.

…The panel, led by Brian Parrott, the former head of Surrey social services, found: "The fear of being discriminatory led them to fail to discriminate between the appropriate and the abusive. "These anxieties about discrimination have deep roots, we argue – in social work training, professional identity and organisational cultures, and the remedies for these go beyond the remit of any single council or inquiry report."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=LCYQIZKPHKFPZQFIQMFSFFWAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2007/09/06/nfoster106.xml

Abuse of Sanity: The truth about how a council allowed a paedophile gay couple to adopt

The Daily Mail 8 September 0207

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=480673&in_page_id=1770

Press Release 19/05/06

The NZ AIDS Foundation’s (NZAF) response to the SPCS press release (Scoop 12/05/06) that dealt with NZAF’s promotion of condoms to prevent HIV/AIDS transmission, demonstrates why this homosexual-lobby fringe group is so ineffective in reducing this growing health crisis amongst the “gay” community.

Nowhere in the SPCS article was “abstinence” mentioned, let alone as a solution to the health problem, and yet NZAF stated:

“The SPCS solution to the problem of HIV – abstinence – is unrealistic and indicative of a failed anti-sex approach to health promotion.” (Scoop 16/05/06)

SPCS attacked NZAF’s spurious and dogmatic claim that condoms will prevent the transmission of the HIV virus. Its position as clearly stated was simply this: government-funded organisations like the NZ AIDS Foundation and the Ministry of Health (MOH) are not telling the whole truth about the effectiveness of condoms in the real world. They are dishonest and their so-called “safe-sex” message using explicit pornographic images and vulgar language, have achieved very little in reducing the growing AIDS/HIV crisis among sexually active promiscuous homosexual men. Condoms will reduce the risk of infection but they are by no means “safe” and to advertise their use in “safe sex” campaigns is socially irresponsible, if not criminal.

As stated in the article by the Society, the MOH stated that estimates from international literature suggest that for receptive anal intercourse with an HIV+ man without condom use, risk of transmission of HIV is 50 per 10,000 exposures. That equates to 1 in 200. Further, Dr Doug Lush Ministry of Health Senior Advisor, Communicable Disease, and Former Acting Director of Public Health stated, “I refer you to the Cochrane Collaboration on condom use, which shows an 80% reduction in HIV incidence.”, in an interview in Investigate Magazine, July 2005. An 80% reduction equates to a rate of infection in the above case of one 1 in 1,000 if a condom is used.

The Society is fully aware that the MOH website claims condoms offer a 95% reduction with respect to the transmission of HIV. However, MOH gives no source, so the Society has wisely avoided using such data. Of course, if one were to accept that figure as a fact, the AIDS Foundation claim of a 1 in 4000 rate of infection would be correct. But Dr Lush, whose figures the Society relied on, is a Senior Advisor and Former Acting Director of Public Health. Furthermore, he provided a source for the 80% figure, which we checked and verified. We therefore feel we were justified in using the lower, more conservative figure of 80% for condom effectiveness, which Dr Lush cited.

The Society asks: Is NZAF prepared to attack Dr Lush in the same way it did the Society, labelling him “ill-informed” and his data “erroneous”, on the basis that it rejects his more conservative figure of 80% effectiveness which the Society used? 

Now for the sake of argument let us say the AIDS Foundation figure of 1 in 4,000 is correct, even though they provide no proper reference for this figure. NZAF emphasise the low risk of infection based on this statistic. However, it ignores one crucial fact – the risk becomes quite high when one repeats risky behaviour – receptive anal intercourse – over a period of time. Take a homosexual couple where one is HIV+. If they have sex on average three times a week (a very conservative estimate) over a period of five years the chance of infection would be 17%. If the condom effectiveness was somewhere in the middle of the two figures (Lush’s 80% and MOH’s 95%) – say 90%, the chance of infection would be 31%.

If the homosexual activists in the government-funded AIDS Foundation lobby group consider these risks “safe”, then that would explain why the rate of HIV is so disproportionately high in the homosexual community. It is the Foundation’s misguided appreciation of the very real health risks that has led to the crisis.  Male homosexuals make up less than 3% of the population, yet the vast majority of those infected in New Zealand were infected by homosexual contact. One of the main reasons for this is the high number of sexual partners many homosexuals have in places like “cruising” venues, “gay” bathhouses, public toilets etc.

It only takes a relatively small subgroup within the homosexual community to engage in repeated risky behaviour to effect a significant level of AIDS virus transmission to non-carriers. The transmission of the HIV-virus caused by the irresponsible behaviour of a subgroup of highly promiscuous infected homosexuals can go undetected by the seemingly healthy non-carriers, until such time as they front up for an AIDS test. The problem is that many of those identified as HIV+ continue in their promiscuous lifestyle believing that their multiple sex partners are running no significant risk when engaging in sex acts with them. About 40 percent of homosexual men with a regular male partner are unsure about their own HIV status, let alone their partners. Last year 89 gay men tested positive for HIV. Most were not in a serious relationship at the time (http://www.loveis.co.nz/). This is a recipe for disaster!
It is quite erroneous for NZAF to claim that having anonymous sex with another man you have just met at a public toilet or in a “gay” bath house is safe as long as a condom is used. But this fringe organisation has the gall to then claim that all happily married heterosexual couples in a committed monogamous relationship are practising unsafe sex if the choose not to use a condom.

NZAF continues to be “socially irresponsible, if not criminal” for advocating the use of condoms to prevent the transmission of HIV between men who have sex with men, within clearly identifying the real risks involved.

In a desperate attempt to shore up its erroneous case, NZAF compares the risk of transmission of HIV to the Ministry of Transport estimates that seat belts reduce the risk of death in a car crash by around 40%. It order to try and ridicule the Society’s position, NZAF points out “Though driving with a seatbelt still presents some risk of harm, is anyone seriously suggesting abstaining from car travel?” (The Society never mentioned “abstinence”).

SPCS responds: “Of course not!”. The real point is that responsible car manufacturers do point out the fact that while the use of quality seatbelts will reduce the severity of injuries and save lives in most serious accidents, they provide far from absolute protection. They do not ‘eroticise’ seatbelts, or glamorise irresponsible cruising manoeuvres on the public roads in order to sing the praises of the all-sufficiency of seat belts!  Rather, they support the proper use of vehicles, not the irresponsible hedonistic lifestyle equivalent of  “gay” cruisers.

Car manufacturers have introduced additional safety features such as air bags not in order to encourage drivers to engage in higher risk driving manoeuvres and death-defying stunts. Even here they emphasise the limitations of such devices, something, which the NZAF ignores with respect to condoms, due to its eroticised condomania infatuation.

Press Release 12/05/06

The New Zealand AIDS Foundation strongly rejects claims that its new “safe sex” advertisement, featured in the latest issue of gay magazine Jack, is pornographic (Scoop 11/05). This is about as true as their spurious claim that condoms will prevent the transmission of the HIV virus.

Below are two quotes from GayNZ.com, a homosexual web site.

“Grant explains why he felt it was important to expose himself to the world in the AIDS Foundation’s ‘Horny As’ campaign.”

“The campaign is designed not just to remind men about condoms, but to help eroticise them as well.”

If the AIDS Foundation was serious about reducing the spread of HIV they would tell the truth about anal intercourse and the effectiveness of condoms.

Fact 1: Condom use only shows an 80% reduction in HIV incidence. [ref. 1]

Fact 2: For a man, a single act of receptive anal intercourse with an HIV+ man carries 10 times the risk of infection, compared to an act involving vaginal intercourse with an HIV+ woman. [ref. 2]

If a man has protected receptive anal intercourse with an HIV+ man the odds of infection are 1 in a 1000.

Just like drunk driving you may get away with it once or twice, but if you persist in risky behaviour you will get unlucky in the end. Condoms reduce the risk of infection but they are by no means “safe” and to advertise their use in “safe sex” campaigns is socially irresponsible, if not criminal.

It can be compared to a liquor company refusing to do all within their power to ensure that consumers of its product get a clear message of zero tolerance: never drive when you have had too much to drink. Instead  they promote intoxicated bar patrons to keep drinking while informing them to drink a glass of milk before driving home in order to avert the risk of getting caught, based on the fictitious liquor company claim that milk helps the body metabolise alcohol more quickly and therefore lowers blood alcohol levels.

The analogy, while a little simplistic, stresses the point that when highly risky behaviour (promiscuous sodomy) is promoted and engaged in, so-called limited protections (condoms) will eventually prove ineffective as proved by the fact that well over 80% of those who have contracted HIV/AIDS in New Zealand are homosexual men who have been involved in risky acts of sodomy. Those who remain unaware that they have contracted HIV continue to spread their load and infect others, all in the name of “freedom” and sexual enlightenment.

Chief Censor Bill Hastings, a “gay” man, has been reported by GayNZ.com as stating:
“…..  “I understand that the NZAF [New Zealand AIDS Foundation] advertisement [in JACK] is part of a campaign to make condom use “hot,” which necessitates the use of aroused men. The wide dissemination of such advertisements amongst sexually active men, far from injuring the public good, actively promotes the public good and supports a public health initiative designed to save lives and millions of taxpayer dollars in health care. This is a significant factor we would have to consider if we were ever called upon to classify the advertisement or the magazine.”
See: “Storm in a condom: Horny As gets stickered 11MAY06 – Jay Bennie

http://www.gaynz.com/aarticles/templates/features.asp?articleid=1311&zoneid=16

The Society is appalled that the Chief Censor is promoting the NZ AIDS Foundation propaganda in the magazine Jack, by claiming that its sexually explicit adverising is “in the public good”.

References:

Ref. 1. Dr Doug Lush is a Ministry of Health Senior Advisor, Communicable Disease, and Former Acting Director of Public Health. In an interview in Investigate Magazine, July 2005, he stated, LUSH: “I’ll refer you to the Cochrane Collaboration on condom use, which shows an 80% reduction in HIV incidence.”

Ref. 2. 2493 (2006) Question from Judy Turner MP to Minister of Health, Hon.Annette King (20 March 2006). “What are the Ministry of Health’s calculations on the probability of a man being infected while having sex with an HIV+ man?”

Hon Pete Hodgson (Minister of Health) replied: “The Ministry of Health has not made calculations on the probability of a man being infected while having sex with an HIV+ man.

“Estimates from international literature suggest that for receptive anal intercourse with an HIV+ man without condom use, risk of transmission of HIV is 50 per 10,000 exposures.”

3495 (2006) Judy Turner to the Minister of Health (20 March 2006): “What are the Ministry of Health’s calculations on the probability of a man being infected while having sex with an HIV+ woman?”

Hon Pete Hodgson (Minister of Health) replied: “The Ministry of Health has not made calculations on the probability of a man being infected while having sex with an HIV+ woman.

“Estimates from international literature suggest that the risk of transmission of HIV to a man from penile vaginal intercourse without condom use with an HIV+ woman is 5 per 10,000 exposures.”

Press Release: 11 May 2006
The Society has written an open letter to Whitcoulls (NZ) congratulating its management for refusing to stock the “gay” magazine JACK. It has responded to the arguments put forward by Chief Censor, Bill Hastings, that sexually explicit NZ AIDS Foundation ads in the magazine promoting ‘safe-sex’ via condom use are in the “public good”.

OPEN LETER
Mr Warren Hunter
Senior Category Manager
Whitcoulls
Head Office
Auckland
Dear Mr Warren Hunter
We write on behalf of our Society’s national executive and membership concerning Whitcoull’s reported decision to refuse to supply to the public and/or stock copies of the homoerotic and sexually explicit magazine JACK that promotes sexual deviancy and perversion (sodomy) and unhealthy promiscuous homosexual ligfestyle. We congratulate your company on this decision!
However, based on what we have read in reports on the homosexual-lobby/activist website GayNZ.com, there is a suggestion that your bookshops might stock it if the publisher/supplier agrees to add a “R18″ sticker to the opaque wrapping envelope the obscene and offensive magazine comes in.
Such a “restiction” notification by way of such a “sticker” has no real meaning defined in law. It is not of form of official classification. Such stickers are not official and are not issued by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). The publication must first be classified by the Classification Office as “restricted” before any official restriction label such as “R18″ can be supplied to the distributer and/or “display conditions” imposed.
If Whitcoulls decides to stock stickered JACK magazines, using unofficial “R18″ labels, we can be sure a legal challenge to your decision from the homosexual community will ensue. A homosexual activist/lobbyist may well submit the magazine to the Chief Censor, Bill Hastings, who is a self-advertising practising homosexual and his deputy, Ms Nicola McCully, an acknowledged practising lesbian, and their Office will issue a decision in due course that will put Whitcoulls on the map internationally!
Sadly, your company may well open itself to accusations of being “homophobic” if you require unofficial “R18″ stickers to be added to JACK and following submission of the magazine, the Chief Censor will formally classify it “unrestricted”. If he does so, no supplier of the magazine to the public, has any authority in law to require it to be sold in a sealed opaque envelope or require the distributor to include warning labels on the publication for “nudity” “explicit sex” or “obscene content” etc.
Bill Hastings has already been reported by GayNZ.com as stating:
“…..  “I understand that the NZAF [New Zealand AIDS Foundation] advertisement [in JACK] is part of a campaign to make condom use “hot,” which necessitates the use of aroused men. The wide dissemination of such advertisements amongst sexually active men, far from injuring the public good, actively promotes the public good and supports a public health initiative designed to save lives and millions of taxpayer dollars in health care. This is a significant factor we would have to consider if we were ever called upon to classify the advertisement or the magazine.”
See “Storm in a condom: Horny As gets stickered 11MAY06 – Jay Bennie
http://www.gaynz.com/aarticles/templates/features.asp?articleid=1311&zoneid=16
In other words, Bill Hastings argues that the proliferation and dissemination of NZAF adverts involving erect male penises in the context of AIDS awareness/’safe-sex’ advertising are “IN THE PUBLIC GOOD”. Such material cannot by his defiition be classified “restricted” under the legislation using HIS definition of the public good.
Our Society has been involved for over 30 years in the field of monitoring the decisions made by censors dealing with material deemed “injurious to the public good” and warning against the serious harm caused by exposure and addiction to hard core porn, magazines advocating promiscuous sexual lifestyles etc.
The magazine JACK, as you have correctly noted, is totally inappropriate as a publication for sale through your family-orientated bookshops. To stock such material with explicit homosexual content would do enormous damage to your family-store/good values image.
Our Society members will be pleased to learn, when the decision is finally made, that Whitcouls will not disseminate any such sexually explicit homoerotic material. The NZ AIDS Foundation has been assisted for too long at the tax-payers’ expense to advance its ineffective message regarding so-called ‘safe-sex’ practice. Its use of offensive sexually explicit content to promote its half-truths concerning condom use to the public, cannot be justified. The HIV/AIDS pandemic advances globally and the situation on NZ has deteriored to its worst level in recent years despite millions of dollare being poured into the NZ AIDS Foundation.
The Society will be monitoring bookshops that stock the magazine JACK on a regular basis.
We wish you well in the task of choosing good quality books and magazines to the public of New Zealand.
Please let us know asap of Whitcoull’s decision re the stocking of JACK.
Yours sincerely
SPCS National Executive.

See also: Gay mag pulled for condom ad

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3664830a11,00.html

Chief Censor Bill Hastings says that columnist Jim Hopkins’ attempt at satire over South Park evaporates in the harsh light of truth because he did not ban religious videotapes to which Hopkins refers.

Hastings’ claim is disingenuous. He was largely responsible for writing the decision that resulted in the banning of the two videos (GayRights/Special Rights: Inside the Homosexual Agenda and AIDS: What You Haven’t Been Told) when he was the deputy president of the Film and Literature Board of Review, a statutory position he held before becoming Deputy Chief Censor in 1998.

Both videos were classified “objectionable” and therefore banned, by the Board, in 1997.

The Board’s lawyer, John Oliver confirmed that Hastings wrote this decision, when he appeared before the Court of Appeal last year in a case in which the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards appealed successfully against another board decision.
Living Word Distributors finally succeeded in having the board’s banning orders effectively quashed in a unanimous decision issued by the five judges of the Court of Appeal in 2001. The board was directed to reclassify them both and classified them “unrestricted”.

David Lane
Secretary, Society for the Promotion of Community Standards.

Reference

Letter to the Editor by Chief Censor Bill Hastings
The NZ Herald 28/02/06
Censor’s Jurisdiction

Columnist Jim Hopkins alleges that I did not ban the “Bloody Mary” episode of South Park for two reasons.

He first states, tongue-in-cheek, that it would be utterly improper to argue that this “New Zealand/Canadian Chief Censor”, having previously banned at least one religious videotape because it insulted, demeaned and ridiculed gays, should have banned “that episode of South Park on the grounds it did the same to Catholics”.

His attempt at satire evaporates in the harsh light of truth. I did not ban the “religious videotape” to which he refers.

He then states that I did not ban the “Bloody Mary” episode because I share Canadian nationality with the corporate owner of C4. Once again, the truth ruins the whole point of Hopkins’ column. The reason I did not ban that episode of South Park is that neither I nor the Classification Office has any jurisdiction over television and radio broadcasts. We, therefore, cannot ban any television programme.

Hopkins might claim in his defence that his column was satirical. I would agree that satire based on fact is legitimate social commentary. Satire based on falsehood is just inept.

W.K. Hastings,
Chief Censor of Film and Literature.