The Christian website blamed the Christchurch earthquake on vengeance from God because of the “amoral” behaviour of Gays and Lesbians as the earthquake struck on the day ‘Gay Ski Week’ was to begin in the city.
According to the Senior Editor of GayNZ.com, Jay Bennie, the ChristchurchQuake.net website listed a number of the major incidents that have taken place as a result of the devastating quake and blames them squarely on Gay people.
The website warned Kiwis that they should not “tempt fate and risk another quake.” It said:
“The morning of the Christchurch earthquake was the opening of ‘Gay Ski Week’. The highlight of the week was a party featuring two of NZ’s ugliest and butchest lesbians as the main event in Queenstown. Squadrons of ‘imports’ were to have been brought in for the week — from Sydney’s now booming gay and lesbian area around Oxford St, between the CBD and Kings Cross.”
In an interview with Britain's PinkNews.co.uk's editors, Bennie said;
“I think it’s despicable, I think it’s appallingly insensitive, not only to gays and lesbians but to the suggestion that the people of Christchurch, by embracing gays and lesbians to certain degrees in their society, have brought this upon themselves.
“It’s cruel and vindictive in the city’s hour of need. We are pretty disgusted about it and find it hard to understand how humane people could do this sort of thing,” he said.
“I would ask them to consider the lives of people in Christchurch and not use tragedy as a further opportunity to stir up hatred against Gay and Lesbian people."
An Associate Professor of History at Massey University in Auckland on New Zealand's North Island, Dr. Peter Lineham told GayNZ.com that:
The source at BlueHost.com indicated that given the subject matter and as a matter of taste and appropriate content v. non-appropriate content, the company made the decision to suspend the site as it violated its terms of service: (From Bluehost.com TOS)
Dr.Lineham, who is a recognized expert in the filed of religious studies and whom has for years studied religious movements, told GayNZ.com that LGBTQ person's visibility "is shocking for them, it makes them feel like the world is imploding and feeds into their religious predictions of the end of the world.""This sort of homophobic attitude generally comes from religious people who are subscribing to a Mid-Western USA frame of thought which is fearful of the world. It has its roots in a fear of what they see as a series of evils which are destroying what seems to them to have once been a comfortable 19th century kind of world. They see gays and lesbians as a threat to family life and fear lesbians in particular, as for them all submissiveness to a male authority figure has gone."
The source at BlueHost.com indicated that given the subject matter and as a matter of taste and appropriate content v. non-appropriate content, the company made the decision to suspend the site as it violated its terms of service: (From Bluehost.com TOS)
"Other Activities. Engaging in any activity that, in Bluehost.com's sole and absolute discretion, disrupts, interferes with or is harmful to (or threatens to disrupt, interfere with, or be harmful to) the Services, Bluehost.com's business, operations, reputation, goodwill, Subscribers and/or Subscriber relations, or the ability of Bluehost.com's Subscribers to effectively use the Services is prohibited. Such prohibited activities include making available any program, product or service that is designed to or could be used to violate these Terms. In addition, the failure of Subscriber to cooperate with Bluehost.com in correcting or preventing violations of these Terms by, or that result from the activity of, a subscriber, patron, customer, invitee, visitor, or guest of the Subscriber constitutes a violation of these Terms by Subscriber."Reactions from the global LGBTQ community have universally condemned the website's content with an ex-pat Kiwi living in Canada noting that he googled the Christchurch quake and up came Christchurchquake.net.
"Thinking it was some kind council website or something I went to look at it," says Jonathan O'Brien. "The whole site is either some sick joke or a worrying sign of insane bigotry back home."
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1 comments:
Whilst it is very pleasing to see the action taken by Bluehost in taking down the ChristchurchQuake.net site down, I think, given the quote from Dr. Pete Lineham, that what we really need is for his words to become required reading as an amendment to the US Constitution.
Dr. Lineham has summarized the predicament of those who subscribe to what he rightly points out as, "...what seems to them to have once been a comfortable 19th century kind of world," and that, "...LGBTQ person's visibility "is shocking for them, it makes them feel like the world is imploding and feeds into their religious predictions of the end of the world."
These people need reassurance that equality does not herald the end of life as we know it, and that they have nothing to fear except the fear they generate in their own minds.
Untangling their minds from the knots of scripture is of course, a daunting task, which should also aid their understanding that their belief is not universal or even necessary for a loving and happy life.
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