Deborah Coddington: Sect, lies and underhand tactics mean gutter politics

Twenty-something years ago I was prescribed bedrest in Whangarei Hospital for three months to try to save my baby (those were the days when this sort of medical treatment was not considered a luxury under the public health system).

In the ward of four women, one was a member of the Exclusive Brethren who, from memory, lived near Dargaville.

She didn't boast about her religion, or try to convert us heathens, but her choice of faith was obvious from her visitors - family and friends in headscarves, long hair (for women), and sensible shoes.

I never completed the three months' confinement - the unborn child died at 18 weeks.

Friends find this sort of loss difficult to handle. It's as if you were never pregnant and they grasp for well-meaning platitudes ("it's for the best" or "you've got three lovely children anyway") which do nothing to ease the hurt.

But my ward companion from the Exclusive Brethren showed me more tenderness, kindness and comfort than anyone else could manage. I can't remember her name, but was grateful for her support.

So I don't go along with the current paranoia which implies that all individuals who belong to this sect are evil. However, it's apparent that the Exclusive Brethren have changed over the past two decades; have become much more militant.

Last week many New Zealand women around the country would have nodded vigorously in agreement with National MP Katherine Rich. Rich, one of the National Party's most rational and fair-minded MPs, said she believed the all-male line-up of EB members during the 2005 election campaign "made many women voters wonder just what their conservative vision for New Zealand was".

It's ludicrous that the Brethren are now complaining they are a minority group being victimised. They hired private investigators to trail Helen Clark and her husband (who endearingly says he walks to work and buses home again to cook tea), plus senior Cabinet ministers David Parker and David Benson-Pope. Is it just a coincidence that these particular politicians were all pummeled by Ian Wishart in Investigate magazine?

No wonder the Prime Minister lashed out at the EB.

In my short time as an MP, my car (not while I was driving) was tailed by a private investigator and later discovered by prison security officers to be bugged (I still have the device). It's a horrible feeling, and I blamed some random sex offender, disgruntled at being listed in my books. I doubt the EB was behind my problems.

Nonetheless, a former Brethren member told Australian television she witnessed confessions of child abuse, which were quickly forgiven and hushed up. How hypocritical, then, that the Exclusive Brethren are driven largely to interfere in politics by their hatred of homosexuality and gay marriage.

They ignore criminal and deviant acts, yet condemn legal and loving relationships.

They shun newspapers, radio and television, yet anonymously published their own media attacking political parties they don't support. They are happy to work behind the scenes, manipulating political parties so they can create a country in their own fundamentally conservative image, but they cried foul when the Prime Minister, justifiably, attacks.

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, journalist David Marr claimed the sect had mainly been driven to put its money and influence into election campaigns because of its abiding repulsion and disagreement with gay marriage and homosexuality.

They don't have this on their own. The Act Party once enjoyed considerable support from a Mormon contingent in the Hamilton area (and no doubt people of that faith also supported other political parties). Before the 2002 election, one candidate (a Mormon) told me she had someone prepared to fund pamphlets alleging Helen Clark was gay.

My first reaction screamed "no", and my second was, "Even if she is, so what? Why waste your money because New Zealanders don't really care."

Today, Act's two MPs are both liberals and the Mormon influence has largely reduced to minor administrative tasks.

But regardless of the Exclusive Brethren, there will always be foam-at-the-mouth homophobes, who do have a right to express their opinions. And we have a right to laugh at them.

However, the Brethren have overstepped the mark in claiming special privilege under certain legislation because they're not part of the political process, and then using their secret and underhand tactics to try to shape New Zealand in their image.

At least the Mormons are mostly up front. They join political parties and become list candidates, often declaring their faith on their public resumes. If they want to change the government, they use their democratic weapon - their vote.

As I write, there are oppressed people around the world risking their lives fighting for the right to vote.

But here, the Exclusive Brethren haven't had the guts to do that. Instead, kind individuals notwithstanding, the leaders have exploited New Zealanders' religious tolerance and taken politics down into the gutter.