Garth George: Free speech vital when a man has an opinion on everything

It's a weird old world we live in. In the past week or so we've had a politician and others blathering on about birds wearing burqas; and a mayor, councillors and others babbling about bimbos baring their boobs in Queen St.

You sure can't please anybody these days. On the one hand there are objections because some women cover themselves from head to toe so that none of their charms, if they have any, is on display. On the other, we have objections to a party of so-called porn stars wearing so little that nearly all their charms, if they have any, are on display.

Frankly, I have no sympathy for either side, nor could I care less. If Muslim men are so insecure that they require their women to wear, in public, a shroud with eye slits, then that's their business. Just don't let them drive.

And if a purveyor of porn wants to parade his dreary drabs with their dilated dugs down the main drag at lunchtime to promote a tatty erotica exhibition, then I'll leave him to it. Just stay out of my face.

Neither the women in burqas nor the siliconed strumpets are breaking the law, but it amuses me to think that if a group of young, handsome and well-built men were to parade down that same street with their charms on display, they'd be run in so fast the local lockup would be full in no time.

Everywhere you look these days barely concealed mammaries, well-rounded rumps and lissom legs are sexily staring you in the eye - from newspapers, magazines, billboards, TV and movie screens, DVDs and, particularly, the internet.

So when a school principal is lumbered for allegedly having pornography on his school PC, I raise my eyebrows yet again.

I wonder if there is a PC in New Zealand upon which one could not find a skerrick of porn, such is the volume of smutty spam to which all our emails are subject.

All it takes is an unintended (or unwise) click of a mouse.

I have nothing to say about the predicament of Tim Jenkinson, principal of Bayview school - in these days of double standards he hardly stands a chance - but I do want to record three cheers for his wife, Vicki Jenkinson, who is firmly and courageously sticking by her man.

In an email to me, although as far as I know we have never met, Mrs Jenkinson said: "There are many things I could say in defence of my husband in regard to the news items printed about him in the Herald this week. However, I prefer to quote Theodore Roosevelt since his words sum up the man who is Tim Jenkinson - husband, father, son, brother, friend, educator and leader.

"Roosevelt said: 'It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again ... who knows the greater enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

Bravo Mrs Jenkinson. Your husband will draw great comfort from your love, loyalty and support - the greatest and most precious gifts any wife can bestow upon a husband.

This week, incidentally, marks 10 years since this column began to appear weekly. The first was published on August 28, 1996, and since then there have been 480 of them amounting to some 340,000 words.

When Gavin Ellis, who was editor at the time, asked me to write a weekly column, I asked him "What about?" He said, "Anything you like." "Do you really mean that?" I asked. "Yes," said he - and for a man with an opinion on everything, it was an offer I couldn't refuse.

I am grateful that he and his successors have stuck to that undertaking - and still do - despite the unpleasant criticism, and sometimes abuse, they have sometimes taken from those who would have had this column canned.

My writings have always been markedly politically incorrect and blatantly Christian and thus have often made angry some of those who count themselves among the great and the good.

But the editors, bless them, have always had the courage to stick by the fundamental principle of free speech that while they might disagree - and sometimes vehemently - with what I say, they will ever defend my right to say it.

Over the years I have received thousands of emails, hundreds of letters and scores of telephone calls from readers. I thank you all because since I write on the basis of "love me or hate me but please don't ignore me" - a tenet handed on to my by the first editor I worked for - I thrive on reaction, be it positive or negative.

And, I guess, it goes with the territory that while many of those who disagree with me write letters to the editor, the much greater number who agree send me nice personal emails.

My special thanks go to those Christian brothers and sisters who have prayed for me over the years. For without that, the most effective and powerful of all support, this column would have ceased long ago.

God bless you all.