Ninth National Gay Rights Conference

Easter weekend saw the 9th National Gay Rights Conference being held in the Union Hall. The conference was opened by Ms Alison Laurie, a New Zealander resident in. Norway with some considerable experience in international lesbian/gay politics. In her opening address she contrasted New Zealand's regressive moves on gay/lesbian rights (illustrated by the recent New Zealand Human Rights Commission report), and Scandanavia's progressive stand on human rights for gays and lesbians - as evidenced in the recent amendments to Norway's antidiscrimination act.

In the New Zealand Human Rights Commission report, the Commission stated that it believed some forms of discrimination were acceptable. In particular, homosexuals were not entitled to protection from discrimination because homosexuality could not be regarded as a 'status' as defined by the Oxford dictionary! What this means in real terms to gays and lesbians in New Zealand is that it is lawful, in the eyes of the Human Rights Commission, for employers to refuse them employment; for landlords to refuse or evict them from flats; for the Courts to deny them custody of any children they may have; for hotel managers to refuse them entry to their bars; for the police to harass and abuse them; and a myriad of other harassments and discriminations. Ms Laurie reminded the conference how Hitler's Germany, through a similar progression, entered upon a 'final solution' to the problem of its minority groups - with the murder of six million Jews and 350,000 known or suspected homosexuals.

Ms Laurie contrasted the New Zealand situation with Norway's new law which now makes it illegal not only to discriminate against minority groups including homosexuals, but also makes it illegal for anyone to discriminate against gay men or lesbians by any public utterance. Ms Laurie said "the Scandinavian countries see their gay minority groups as an integral part of their society, which within a democratic system must enjoy civil rights and protection."

Welfare Workshops

The workshop on welfare was lead by Neil Grange, who has been involved for some years with Gay Aid, a Wellington telephone support service. Neil identified some of the difficulties presented by callers as being tennagers below the age of 18; those who find themselves isolated for geographical reasons or by virtue of the fact of not being able to make contact with other gay people; and those who find themselves caught in heterosexual type marriages.

Other areas covered by the workshop were what sort of welfare services need to be provided and the virtues or otherwise of telephone services. The group arrived at the concensus that as a first point of contact the telephone was probably indispensible because it was readily available to everyone and because of the particular anonymity it afforded the caller.