Bishop Brian Tamaki, head of the New Zealand Fascist Party Destiny Church has now come out swinging, saying that New Zealand is a Christian country and as such immigrants of other faiths should not be permitted to practice their faith in schools or perform certain actions that they are permitted to perform in their homelands.
As a (very much lapsed but still somewhat identifying) Jew, it disturbs me to hear these comments. Similarly however it should disturb all rational New Zealanders.
New Zealand is a secular, egalitarian society that embraces (or should) diversity in all its forms – be they religious, cultural or yes, even the diversity to show a propensity for wearing black T-shirts and marching en-masse waving your fist in the air. Tamaki’s comments, while designed to shock and polarise, are in a similar vein to Robert Mugabe’s and not entirely dissimilar from those of the KKK.
Given the results of the last census when almost a majority of New Zealanders described themselves as secular, and Christianity was in no way a majority faith, Bishop Tamaki’s claims that New Zealand was, is and always will be a Christian nation are somewhat confusing.
Thoughts blogsters?
Ben Kepes is an analyst, an entrepreneur, a commentator and a business adviser. His business interests include a diverse range of industries from manufacturing to property to technology. As a technology commentator he has a broad presence both in the traditional media and extensively online. Ben covers the convergance of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users. 
Confusing? Not really. The man will say anything to get his followers to give him more money, and to gain more of the sort of followers that will give him money. It’s a classic model of entrepreneurship and it works very well, particularly in America.
Sorry, did I let the inner cynic in me slip out? It does that from time to time…
Fortunately, in Canterbury we have the sort of population that mostly sees straight through all that BS. Destiny was running around door-knocking quite vigorously against Tim “Prostitution Law Reform and Civil Unions” Barnett last election – and I think their candidate managed less than 1% of the vote while Tim’s majority was hardly scratched.
Pssst: Strictly speaking it’s spelt “xenophobia”. Zenophobia probably means “feat of strangely dressed Japanese monks” or something along those lines…
Darn Seth
Normally I’m the grammar and spelling pedant – thanks for the tip!