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Heather Delair's avatar

As a sister, cousin, niece, and friend of gay individuals places like BC hurt my heart. The problem I have with religious institutions, especially Christian based, is that they throw out bible verses claiming they are the word of God. God didn't write the bible. Man did. Man is fallible. Also, it's always some how lost on today's Christians that the bible has been edited so many times over the years to suit the agenda of whoever was in power at the time. Most of the real works have either been surpressed or edited so many times that the real meaning has been lost over time. I do agree with the basis of Christianity and I also believe in the basis of a lot of other religions. However, religion has always been used as a scare tactic to keep people in line or to push a certain person or persons agendas. We don't need the bible to tell us how to live a good life. It's simple. Don't be a dick. Respect other people how you would like to be respected. It's not hard to be a good person. Being a good person is not about being perfect. It's about doing the best we can, admitting when we mess up, and trying to be a better person today than you were yesterday. 💗✌️

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Peter Hassall's avatar

Growing up in Auckland in the 1970s I hid my true gender identity. My parents were religous and I had to go to church every Sunday (until I rebelled aged 16). Luckily I went to a state school but had to do religious school night once a week at our local church (at about age 14 I got in trouble for questioning the logistics of all the animals on Noah's ark). Except for a year when I went flatting before returning home, I hid my gender expression from almost everyone almost all of the time. I was sometimes depressed and suicidal-thinking there was something wrong with me. The only real life trans role models were prostitutes and strippers and glamourous TV acts who were treated as a bit of fun. Trans and gay people were objects of ridicule on TV shows and in movies were depicted as perverts. There was no legal protection-police could harass you and arrest you if you dressed differently to the norm of your biological sex. Midnight screenings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Hollywood in Avondale were one of the few opportunities to be free. Without that, a few sympathetic close friends and counselling from Youthline I would have been dead long before now. In my early twenties I moved to Wellington. Outside work hours I sometimes pushed the restrictive boundaries of what was acceptable for men to wear. I finally came out as trans at the age of 55 (over 5 years ago). Not to everyone in my life, but at work and to most people. No young person (or adult) should have to hide that they are trans or gay today for fear of ridicule or violence. It is shameful that religious schools are getting away with anti gay and anti trans rules. That is illegal under current laws. They need to lose all of their state funding and be forced to drop the clauses from their contracts. Sadly in Aotearoa/New Zealand we are now visibly seeing the same type of anti-LGBTIA+ people, racists, conspiracy nuts, anti-vaxxers, gun rights proponents, etc., as in the USA.

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