| A WORLD WITHOUT GAYS? A New Zealand Aotearoa Perspective. New Zealand Aotearoa commentators have made significant comments on Bishop Whakahuihui Vercoes' call for "a world without gays", pointing out that his views deny much of his own Moari and Polynesian cutural origins, where same-gender relationships were practised. The following articles were copied from the New Zealand Herald, from http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ after searches. They were written in response to a call by Anglican Primate, Bishop Whakahuihui Vercoe, for a "world without gays". Like Muriel Porter in
Australia, they call the bluff of Christian fundamentalism, pointing
to the fact that pre-Christian Polynesian societies accepted a wider
variation in sexual preferences much earlier than Europeans, as shown
in the fa'afafine of Samoa, faka leiti of Tonga and mahu of
Tahiti. They question bigotry and the injustice of
intolerance. They also raise questions for Australian readers,
who are told little of Polynesian culture and history by the Polynesian
migrant-ethnic churches in Australia. One Polynesian writer plays
with a suggestion that Pacific
peoples "have played a seminal role in the emergence of modern
homosexual identity." Another writer questions anachronistic,
conservative opinion and the third explains that bigots have put
the mental in fundamental.
You can thank Pacific Islanders for your view of sexuality Bishop's position represents old values of conservative right Bigots who have put the mental into fundamental You can thank Pacific Islanders for your view of sexuality Tapu Misa New Zealand Herald 16.06.2004 Depending on where you stand on the homosexual debate, we in the Pacific could either be blamed or lauded for our impact on matters gay. Since those first European explorers sailed into the warm waters of the Pacific and became the grateful beneficiaries of the sexual largess of Polynesian women, we've had an undeniable influence on the way in which Westerners have viewed sexuality. Thanks to the work of countless writers, artists and ethnographers, that influence has been assumed to be largely of the heterosexual kind, given the Pacific's long reputation for being something of a heterosexual utopia. But according to Dr Lee Wallace, a women's studies lecturer at Auckland University, that's only the half of it. The other, and less-known half of the story, is that the Pacific has played a seminal role in the emergence of modern homosexual identity. Yes, I know, ironic isn't it? Especially when you consider how pious and proper we Pacific Islanders have become, and how fervent many of us have become in the stand against homosexual encroachment on our churches. Still, Dr Wallace mounts a persuasive argument in her book Sexual Encounters when she posits that early European encounters with Polynesians opened up new ways of viewing sexuality - particularly homosexuality. Because up until then, it had indeed been a world without homosexuals. The kind of world, in fact, that the new head of the Anglican Church in New Zealand, Bishop Whakahuihui Vercoe, and many of his Christian supporters seem to believe could once again exist. Of course, this wouldn't be the first time we've been blamed/credited (take your pick) with sexual influence we didn't know we had. All the time we thought we were the ones being influenced by those devout Christian missionaries, who introduced a new morality and the idea of sin into the Pacific, and besought us in the name of the Lord to cover up, discard our lascivious dances and love a little less indiscriminately, we had no idea that accounts of our apparent sexual laxity were having a liberating effect on sexual attitudes around the globe. American anthropologist Margaret Mead didn't help matters when she wrote her internationally celebrated 1928 book Coming of Age in Samoa. Her picture of an idyllic, gentle and sexually uninhibited culture where adolescents were free to indulge in sexual activities without the attendant guilt caught hold of imaginations already piqued by ethnographic accounts of the Pacific as a kind of sexual free-for-all. Whatever the weaknesses of Margaret Mead's thesis, the same could be said about same-sex relations witnessed by Europeans in pre-missionary Pacific days. In fact, says Dr Wallace, it was these encounters between European and Pacific peoples in the 18th and 19th centuries that gave rise to our modern understanding of homosexual possibilities and identity. Her somewhat subversive readings of the accounts of such historic luminaries as James Cook and his lieutenant Joseph Banks, French artist Paul Gauguin and even the ill-fated William Bligh (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame) reveal plenty of instances of male-male sexual practices involving Polynesian and Melanesian males, which, in pre-missionary days anyway, was seen as normal, openly referred to and not the least bit shameful. She argues that these encounters forced ethnographers of the Enlightenment era to view sex between men as being not limited merely to the detestable and abominable act of sodomy, but as something altogether different. Up till then, homosexuality simply didn't exist. In fact, until the late 19th century homosexuality wasn't recognised as a distinct category of person. The word wasn't even invented until 1868 when it made its appearance in the lexicon, in a German pamphlet. What was recognised and abominated, and had been since medieval Christian theologians of the 11th century had declared it so, was sodomy, though that initially applied to all manner of non-procreative sexual practices. This was later confused with unnatural acts, which ranged even more widely to include, among other things, procreative sexual acts in the wrong position or with contraceptive intent. Later Christian authors couldn't agree on what unnatural acts or sodomy meant, some in the 13th century defining it as every genital contact intended to produce orgasm except intercourse in an approved position - presumably what we've come to know as the missionary position. The English Reformation Parliament of 1533 then turned that religious injunction against sodomy into the secular and abominable crime of buggery, punishable by death, but this wasn't limited to activity between males and could involve a male and female, even a husband and wife. As Dr Wallace argues, those attitudes held sway until encounters with the sexually relaxed ways of the Pacific gave rise to a reimagining of sodomy, which was to ultimately give birth to what we now know as homosexual identity. Meanwhile, in the Pacific, the missionaries were doing a sterling job of wiping out all manner of activity which could be construed as even remotely sexual. They didn't succeed totally. The fa'afafine of Samoa, the fakaleiti of Tonga, and the mahu of Tahiti, continued to thrive - defying easy definitions, being neither strictly homosexual nor transsexual. As for Maori, there's no reason to suppose they were any less sexually relaxed than their Polynesian cousins. Dig a little deeper and there's plenty of evidence of what another academic, Dr Leonie Pihama, calls a more fluid, more open attitude to sexuality and gender roles before the influence of the church and colonisation. She says Maori terms which refer to an intimate companion of the same sex indicate not only that same-sex relationships existed in pre-Christian Maori culture, but were also no big deal. In fact, says Dr Pihama, it's even acknowledged in well-loved legends such as that of Hinemoa and Tutanekai. Hinemoa, as we all know, was the maiden who was so enamoured of Tutanekai that she swam across Lake Rotorua in the dead of night to be with her lover, guided only by his flute. It's a great love story but there's a twist which has been sanitised in the more general telling to accommodate the shift in morality. It seems that before Hinemoa, Tutanekai lived with another - a male by the name of Tuki, and was so beloved that when Tutanekai took up with Hinemoa, he gifted him land to atone for his abandonment. Or so the revised story goes. As for defining sexual identity, Dr Wallace says that's a continuing saga. Menu Bishop's position represents old values of conservative right Rob McKay New Zealand Herald 16.06.2004 * The Rev Rob McKay is community theologian ki te Taitokerau.
Front-page news regarding Bishop Whakahuihui Vercoe's views on homosexuality and women in the church has drawn both negative and positive opinions throughout New Zealand. The newly appointed archbishop views homosexuality as a sin and also sees women in the episcopacy as a no-go. Bishop Vercoe represents the old values of the conservative right. In stating his views to the media he will no doubt have the support of other Christian denominations and even other religions. Christian denominations that come to mind are the Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, evangelicals, charismatics and Pentecostals. Other religions that would support Bishop Vercoe's view are Orthodox Judaism, Islam, Tibetan Buddhism and Sikhism. Homosexuality is an issue that has divided the church and in some cases split denominations. Pastor Peter Gomes, author of the New York Times best-seller The Good Book: Reading the Bible With Mind and Heart (1996) has identified homosexuality as the last prejudice. And I would add that much of our prejudice is shaped by how we view the Bible. If you view the Bible from a literalist perspective, then you would be holding the values and opinions of the conservative right. If, however, you hold a liberal view of scripture, you would be quite comfortable in accommodating women in the priesthood and in affirming same-sex relationships. Homosexuality is not a sin, nor do I believe that it is a sickness. I would further suggest that those who oppose homosexuality do so as a result of a cultural bias that is not scientifically based. Sexual orientation is a complex issue that requires knowledge across a range of human sciences. These are subjects that lie far beyond my ability to explain, let alone understand. However, in seeking to understand something fundamental to human sexual orientation, we need to appreciate that the centre of sexual arousal is not located in the genitals but in the human brain. According to modern research it is the sexing of the brain that determines your sexual orientation. What this means in layman terms is that you do not choose your sexual orientation; rather, it is something you inherit. To be heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual is something that is innate to your very being. For this reason I agree with Peter Gomes that homosexuality is the last prejudice to be removed from our Christian agenda. Such a prejudice has been fuelled by a literalist approach to the Bible. For me, the Bible is a sacred book inspired by God, although it is nonetheless a fallible book subject to its internal social conditioning and human judgment. Often that judgment has been wrong. The Bible has sadly been used to support the axe, the stake, the gibbet, the thumbscrew and the rack. It has been used to bar the progress of science and to silence the voice of truth; to support slavery, misogyny, apartheid, segregation and colonial expansion. Yet abuse does not cancel use. It is the principles of scripture that we affirm and not its literal interpretation. The Bible remains the fallible witness of God's revelation to humankind in the history of Israel and the Church. It is the primary medium by which revelation comes. Part of that revelation is the need to live in holiness towards God and others. On this point I am sure that our newly appointed archbishop would wholeheartedly agree. Translated into this context means that regardless of one's sexual orientation we are all called by scripture to live a life that is committed to faith, love and holiness. Bigots who have put the mental into fundamental Te Radar New Zealand Herald 25.06.2004 I am sure that many a church fair was organised under the twitching and urine-streaked feet of a strung-up Negro. It's one of the reasons that I simply cannot take seriously those who espouse religious edicts as moral truths. Over the years, though, despite the protestations of many goodly, God-fearing folk, certain policies of social engineering have deemed the lynching of coloured folk socially unacceptable. Other examples of social engineering have allowed women to vote and decriminalised the sexual proclivities of consenting adults. Nonetheless we still live in a country where convicted and imprisoned murderers can get married, but two law-abiding queers can't. This situation is nearly as absurd as some of the petty-minded bigotry that is emanating from our supposed peers. United Future MP Paul Adams stated that "there is not one homosexual man or lesbian woman in this country that is discriminated against, and can't get married. They can. They have just got to choose a partner of the opposite sex". Nor did it come as a surprise that Bishop Whakahuihui Vercoe, a man who is now the top Anglican Church leader, has the audacity to declare a vision for a world without gays. These pages have been inundated with the superstitious claptrap of those associated with organisations such as the Maxim Institute. These self-proclaimed moral guardians are the people who put the mental into fundamentalism. Even their mission statement reeks of the hypocrisy of their ilk, claiming as they do, without any hint of irony, a desire to "promote the principles of a free, just and compassionate society". I am sure that those who use religion to justify stoning rape victims to death as adulteresses feel they are doing the same thing. It is clear that the present debate over civil unions is not as civil as it should be. The scripture-shakers continue to flail their hands and gnash their teeth every time some kind of common sense and justice is brought to social issues. As far as their arguments are concerned, nothing succeeds like their cynical exploitation of the kiddies. Their bourgeois eurocentric notion of the happy nuclear family has to be one of the greatest myths perpetrated on society since we were told that an entity cobbled together the world in six days, before taking time off for a lie-down. And so the zealots are wailing that allowing gays to commit themselves in a socially and legally recognised partnership is only the first step for those who wish to foist on society their so-called "alternative lifestyles". This is true. I for one have been a passionate advocate for the joys brought by polygamy for some time. As much as I love women I find they are a lot like sheep. As delightful and individualistic as they are, they seem to function better in a flock. I guess for many that statement will confirm that muddle-headed thinking isn't confined to the religious. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ |