Shaneel Lal: Hate speech ban should extend to queers, women and disabled

A Tauranga building used by Gender Dynamix and Rainbow Youth was destroyed in a suspicious fire. Photo / NZME

The Labour Party is amending the Human Rights Act 1993 to ban hate speech that incites violence against people for their religious beliefs. Labour will not extend the same protection to the queer community, women and disabled people.

Under the act, it is illegal to publish or distribute threatening, abusive or insulting words likely to “excite hostility against” or “bring into contempt or ridicule” any group on the grounds of skin colour, race, ethnic or national origins. The changes will extend this to cover religious beliefs. It is necessary to protect religious communities.

However, it is dangerous to leave queer people without protection. A petition is calling for Minister of Justice Kiritapu Allan to protect queer people, women and disabled people from hate speech.

Hours after Labour announced they will not protect queer people from hate speech that incites violence, a 22-year-old gunman entered Club Q, a queer nightclub in Colorado, and immediately opened fire, killing at least five people and injuring at least 25 others.

New Zealand has seen a rise in attacks on the queer community in the last two years.

Two non-binary people holding hands in New Plymouth were called homophobic slurs and then attacked by a group of four people and left to bleed.

Ray Gardiner was left with a broken nose, concussion and bruising after a homophobic attack in Auckland. The group stomped on him after kicking him to the ground. Gardiner woke up in a pool of his own blood. A Tauranga pride sign was vandalised with the statement, “God resists the proud.”

An arsonist burned down the Rainbow Youth drop-in centre in Tauranga.

Gloria of Greymouth, a pink queer church, was vandalised with anti-queer symbols, and a burnt rainbow flag was left staked in the lawn.

The owner of Woof!, a queer bar in Dunedin, received two anonymous death threats through the bar’s social media account and messages from Destiny Church pastor Derek Tait, including an image of Tait pointing at Woof!.

These are only a fraction of the incidents. Anti-queer hatred and violence are at an all-time high, but the most frightening part is that the Labour party refuses to make illegal hate speech that incites violence against queer people. The blood is on the Government’s hands.

In 2017, an Auckland pastor Logan Robertson said he was “not against [gay people] getting married as long as a bullet goes through their head the moment they kiss”.

Robertson claimed, “We’ve got Christians that would rather side with them, side with their little f******* cousin or brother or whoever it is.” The Bible does not talk about “homo marriage”, it talks about “homo death”, Robertson added.

In another video, he told his congregation that a death sentence for gay people “should be the law in New Zealand”.

Logan’s statement will remain legal under the Labour Party’s changes to the hate speech law. Is Labour waiting for a mass shooting inspired by anti-queerness to transpire at a New Zealand queer bar before they protect queer people from hate speech that incites violence? How many lives will it take before the Government protects us?

People do not simply wake up one day and decide to mass murder a group of people. They’re encouraged by the normalisation of hatred towards a community. If there is sustained legal hatred towards a community, over time, that normalisation inspires people to act on their hatred. The Labour Party’s failure to prohibit anti-queer hate speech will embolden anti-queer groups, extremist religious groups, and right-wing groups to incite violence against queer people.

I think Labour believes that protection is necessary for queer people, but they will not waste any more political capital on queer lives. Labour needs to stop hiding behind the opposition from the National Party and Act for failing to protect queer people. Labour needs a simple majority of 61 MPs to pass their hate speech law. Labour has 65. The only difference between National and Labour is that National stabs queer people in the chest and Labour in our backs.

If Labour wants to, they will protect us.

Shaneel Shavneel Lal (they/them) was instrumental in the bill to ban conversion therapy in New Zealand. They are a law and psychology student, model and influencer.