They didn't see eye to eye

I've just watched CHP leader Ewan McQueen and Destiny leader Brian Tamiki square off with Georgina Beyer and fellow baptised Anglican Dr Kaa on the Willie Jackson-fronted Eye to Eye. One Non-Maroi. One homosexual, lots of Christians.

They discussed Bishop Vercoe's comment regarding gays and also the Civil Union Bill. I suspect Anglicans were chosen on the pro civil union side in light of the bishop's comments.

I guess I wanted to see the programme to see how the panel interreacted, who was the most tolerant of the opposing view, and didn’t jump in when others were speaking. Most tolerant was Ewan McQueen and least tolerant was Georgina Beyer, the woman who promotes how tolerant she is. I have to say that I did not agree with any of the four entirely. Beyer tried so hard to say Bishop Vercoe said he wanted a "world without gays" without actually admitting these were his words. (He didn`t say that, as it happened).

Then, after interrupting several times, she said to Brian Tamaki
"you are rude and outrageous in your attitute", when all he was doing is saying what he believes. Then she said that she was compassionate. I thought rude people interrupted each other and compassionate people didn’t. Beyer's body language wasn`t exactly oozing with compassion - in fact if her head shook and swayed any more than it did, she could have well dislodged a muscle in her neck.

Tamaki wants a Christian view of society, and wants others to agree with that. Beyer responded by saying that the Church putting everyone into the same pot like that is wrong. I agree.

But isn't that what Labour is doing with couples - putting them into the same legal pot - with the Omnibus bill? Is that wrong? Could it be that it is OK to do this in some instances and not others?

Beyer she said that she didn’t want to tar the Christian community with the same brush as Tamaki, as not all Christians share the extremity of his views. Nor would Tamaki apologise to Beyer for his comments about her on his Destiny TV show. These comments were no worse than Beyer's comments about
Bishop Vercoe. I don't think she`d apologise for calling Vercoe Nazi-like, demented and uneducated. Nor has Vercoe demanded one.

I night add that I do not tar the gay community with the same brush of rudeness as Beyer. Most people I know who are gay are tolerant, polite, and are not rude, even when discussuing issues of contention. It's just that Georgina Beyer is not one of them, unless she had a really bad day on TV.

Finally, I couldn't help noticing that one of the cameramen was a Peter Dunne.