Brian Tamaki promises ‘more of the same’ as police investigate hate crimes
Sunday, 31 March 2024
After a week of protests and vandalism targeting the rainbow community, a defiant Brian Tamaki is promising more of the same.
Tamaki, the driving force behind Destiny Church, has long and loudly opposed the community, and his current list of complaints includes drag queens, the use of the rainbow, and “innuendo with bananas and sausages”.
More seriously, two drag queen performers who say Destiny members are accusing them of being paedophiles are now readying to launch defamation proceedings.
“What Destiny is doing is just not the Christian way, and they’re giving Christians a bad name,” says drag queen Sunita Torrance, who performs as Coco Flash.
Destiny’s latest controversy began on Monday night when members of the church painted over a rainbow crossing on Gisborne's main street.
On Tuesday, Destiny members protested outside the city’s library, where children had gathered to be read stories by Torrance and her drag sister Daniel Lockett, who performs as Erika Flash. That event went ahead, though another planned for Hastings was cancelled.
Then, on Wednesday, a small group once again tried to paint over the restored Gisborne crossing. Three people were subsequently arrested and charged with graffiti vandalism, while a fourth is yet to be located.
Come Thursday, another crossing was coated, this time on Auckland’s Karangahape Rd. Footage shows a rush job by a pair of men with brooms, slipping and sliding over their work as cars drive slowly through the paint.
Rainbow crossings - pedestrian crossings painted in the colours of the original gay pride flag - first appeared in Taiwan in 2008 and have since been adopted around the globe.
Auckland’s crossing, meanwhile, uses the progressive pride flag to also display trans and indigenous colours.
Gender Minorities Aotearoa executive director Ahi Wi-Hongi this week said rainbow crossings were “one of the ways councils are trying to signal that actually everybody belongs in the community.
“For some people within rainbow communities, there's not a lot of obvious public support for their existence.'
Although Tamaki says he doesn’t know who was behind the Auckland vandalism, he fully supports it, and believes it’s “crazy” police are pursuing the incidents as hate crimes.
“Why do they want to hang us? It’s just a protest. The paint is water-based, it just comes off.”
While Tamaki tells the Sunday Star-Times he has “nothing against the gay people”, and Destiny has “no issue with the LGBT community”, both he and the church have a long track record that suggests otherwise.
One of Destiny’s most vivid stands was in 2004 when it protested the civil union bill that would ultimately give same-sex relationships legal recognition.
And, although Tamaki apologised in 2019 for suggesting gay people caused earthquakes, in 2022 he labelled New Zealand a “sick society' for electing 12 gay MPs to Parliament.
This week, he says the Destiny protests weren’t targeted at the rainbow community, but rather at councils that fund both rainbow storytimes and what he calls illegal pedestrian crossings.
When asked what his issue is with either of the above, he offers a mish-mash of motivations including protecting children from “adult entertainers”, and ratepayers from council spending, as well as what he believes is an over-abundance of the rainbow flag used on police cars, public properties and buses.
“Drag queens, its the innuendo with bananas and sausages… They go there to talk about gender fluidity and also how to join the LGBT community. Some people are using the words ‘grooming’ and ‘recruiting’, I haven’t, but it is.”
Despite claiming there is “no ulterior motive or hate crime” in the attacks on crossings, he was back on social media shortly after speaking with the Star-Times.
“The rainbow is stolen property…. [they’ve] twisted it to represent sexual perversions,” Tamaki wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“God condemns their behaviour so why use His Rainbow as reppin’ perversion? What a cheek!”
While Tamaki shrugs off the threat of defamation proceedings - “maybe I should sue them” - Sunita Torrance is deadly serious.
The Taranaki woman says not only have Destiny’s leaders, members and affiliates disrupted storytimes by protesting, they’re also threatening and spreading false allegations about the performers.
Torrance says both she and Lockett have been accused of being paedophiles - “the worst thing you could call someone” - while church members continue to label her a man.
“They make absolutely no secret they can’t stand any homosexual people at all. Transgender to them is the next level of disgusting and ungodly, basically they want to erase the entire LGBT community because they think it’s immoral and there’s an agenda they teach.”
Torrance says storytime events focus on topics including acceptance, anti-bullying, and self-confidence. Both she and Lockett have been reading in libraries since 2019 and are police vetted and certified to work with children and young people.
To be clear, she says, there is no ‘agenda’ or brainwashing involved, and neither of the pair are transgender - not that it should matter.
“I’m straight. If there’s any way you could teach gay I’d be the top of the class, but I’m not. I’m completely surrounded by the rainbow community, I chair the Pride community, and I’m still straight.”
There’s an added personal twist for Torrance. She’s a former member of Destiny Church, having attended with her mum about 20 years ago, and she condemns the actions of Tamaki and his followers.
“I’ve had messages from other pastors and churches saying they’re so sorry this is happening, and that they support us and don’t want us to stop.”
Nor do the people currently donating to help fund the legal fight, with a Givealittle page quickly raising nearly $5,000.
“I am a 45-year-old woman, I’m peri-menopausal, and I’m a drag queen; don’t mess with me,” says Torrance.
Victoria University psychology professor Marc Wilson says Destiny’s protests demonstrate how the culture wars swamping the US have gained a foothold in Aotearoa - albeit a small one.
He points to ACT and NZ First as a toehold for some of the rhetoric, though it’s backed by Destiny, not the parties.
“The difference is that, first, the religious element means the target is particularly salient and, second, that kind of religion-justified prejudice isn't really represented in our parliament.
“Sure, NZ First wants folks to use toilets consistent with gender assigned at birth, but that's not because they're calling it an affront to God.”
Fortunately, Wilson doesn’t believe NZ will go the way of the US, both because of our politics and the electoral system that keeps them at least somewhat balanced.
“At the same time, the breathless rhetoric that National has engaged in around the previous Labour administration - highly emotive accusations that allege actions characterised by immoral motivations - doesn't bode well.”
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