I am so glad that I’m not a member of the local rainbow community. Because if I was, I would be despairing at the weasel words the Christchurch mayor and the city council are trotting out about the Destiny Church's despicable disruption of the pride month opening event in Christchurch on Saturday.  

And it just tells me that people are either scared of taking on the Destiny Church or they somehow think their hatred is okay.  

So what happened at the weekend is the annual “walk for support” for LGBTQIA+ people wound up at the Bridge of Remembrance, and these muppets from the Destiny Church were there protesting against them.  

They were carrying signs saying things about puberty blockers and child abuse and telling the people there to “repent”.  

They also had a speaker system there, which they shouldn't have. But no one did anything about it.  

Which is why a local rainbow campaigner is saying that the city council should apologise for not shutting down this illegal protest driven by nothing more than hatred.  

And I agree. But I don't think that’s going to be coming anytime soon, considering the weasel words being trotted out by mayor Phil Mauger and the council's chief executive.  

Phil Mauger is saying that everyone has the right to protest but it was “not polite” of the Destiny Church to set up their loudspeakers right beside the event.  

He says it was “quite disappointing”, but he’s pleased things didn't get out of control like they did when the Destiny Church went awol at that pride event in Auckland the other week.  

So that’s the mayor. But it gets even worse with what the council’s chief executive is saying.  

Mary Richardson says: “We have to respect other people’s democratic right to protest, even if we don’t agree with their views.”   

And the strongest action the council took was to send out a noise control officer - who found that there weren’t any noise limit breaches. Do me a favour.   

That’s not all. There’s some classic passing-of-the-buck going on, with the council saying that it’s the job of the police to deal with public disturbances and the police saying permission to set-up loudspeakers is the job of the council and so the council has to deal with it, which is why the noise control officer was sent out.  

But could you get a more lame response if you tried? But remember that this isn’t the first time that the Christchurch City Council has turned a blind eye to the Destiny Church.  

You’ll remember how it waived $50,000 in fines that it had sent the church for the disruption caused by its anti-vax mandate protests during covid. That was all to do with Destiny Church not following the rules, not working with the council so it could make sure that traffic management was sorted.  

But the council ripped those tickets up. Derek Tait from Destiny had a cup of tea with former mayor Lianne Dalziell and all was forgiven.   

And it’s doing the exact same thing with these weasel words about the Destiny crew's behaviour on Saturday.  

This is the council, let me remind you, that was all in favour of putting a rainbow crossing somewhere in town. Which, when it comes down to it, doesn't take much fortitude.  

Yes, paint the crossing. I’m all for it.  

But, when it comes down to it, painting a road crossing is nothing like staring down those clowns from the Destiny Church and telling them that their messages of hatred are not welcome.  

And telling them that we’ve had a gutsful of them not giving a damn about the rules. 

Rules that you and I would be expected to follow. And, if we didn't, there’d be consequences. Not if you're the Destiny Church, though, it seems.  

So I’m with the pride campaigners who are saying today that the council could’ve and should’ve done a lot more on Saturday when the Destiny muppets turned up at this event. But the council didn’t - and, for that, it should apologise.  

But that’s not all. The mayor and his council need to condemn Destiny Church for their messages of hatred. 

If the strongest thing Phil Mauger can say is that “wasn’t polite” of them to do what they did, then don’t expect them to pull their heads in anytime soon.  

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