Talk:LGBT rights in New Zealand

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Hi. Chris Finlayson seems to have a Wikipedia page of his own, so could someone please activate a link to that? I amended the page to include his National Party list status and subsequent election recently.

[User: Calibanu] 17:16: 23 March 2006.

Done.-gadfium 05:24, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Prior to 1986?

Although the article presents the milestones post 1986, it does not give any history to gay rights in the country prior to that. NZ, a country that I thought was very liberal, to have only decriminalised gay relations in 1986 seems a bit odd to me! Triangle e 23:17, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the article needs much more information on earlier history. You are welcome to add some.-gadfium 23:41, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

It's true, NZ did only decriminalise in 1986. The history prior to that was of two or three attempts to change the law that did not work. I will try to dig up some details to hang a paragraph on. Kiwimw 09:45, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Gay history consists of more than attempts at law reform! A major problem with this page is that it focusses exclusively on a very limited range of things: MPs, law reform, Hero. I'm assuming that this is just because people are too busy to do anything comprehensive rather than a limited definition of what consistutes history. There should be stuff on:
  • Gay / lesbian life before discrimination
  • Same sex relationships amongst pre-European Maori
  • Effect of AIDS
  • General 'what life in NZ is like if you are gay'
  • links to pages of famous or interesting gay NZers (Frank Sargeson, Amy Bock, the Rocky Horror Show guy etc). This isn't vital, but people like that kind of thing.

Incidentally, NZ only became liberal in the 1980s. Before that we were basically Tasmania or Colorado or somewhere. --Helenalex 01:15, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I suppose it would have been good if I had paid more attention to the title of this page... Nearly everything I mentioned above would be best on a 'Gay New Zealand' (or some similar page, which doesn't yet exist), as would the stuff about gay MPs and festivals. I suppose I can get off my arse and make one, unless there are other volunteers... --Helenalex 07:28, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Transgender stuff

I think this probably needs its own page as the issues are often fairly different. --Helenalex 01:17, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gays and Lesbians in New Zealand

I have created a page: Gays and Lesbians in New Zealand for gay stuff not directly related to rights. At the moment it is pretty basic and has no references, so I would appreciate improvements and additions!

Weirdly, I couldn't find geneal gay pages for other countries. Most either just have a page on rights or many many different pages on subcultures etc but no general overview page. The only page I could find on gay history for one specific country is for Singapore. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong places, but this means I can't add the page to any gay life / history rings (or whatever they are called). --Helenalex 08:42, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

There are more-or-less formal standards for some article names in Wikipedia - for example, every country has an article on "Economy of <countryname>" - and then there are informal standards, sometimes contradicting each other. "Gay rights in <countryname>" is one of the better established informal standards. The existence of a well-populated Category:Gay rights by country where almost all of the articles have the same style of name is the proof of the standard. There are exceptions, such as Homosexuality in India.
I can't see a problem with all the present material in Gays and Lesbians in New Zealand being merged back into this article. Certainly the History section would fit into this article very well, and I always expected that this article would be expanded to cover gay history in New Zealand before legalisation.-gadfium 19:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Gay history is more than just rights or lack of them. For example, the Hero parades have nothing to do with gay rights as far as I can tell. Other countries generally do not shoehorn everything connected to gay people into the gay rights page. As you mention, there is a general page on gays in India, and there is also a history of gay Singapore. For the US and some other countries there are about a million gay-related pages. It's good that there is an established standard for gay rights pages, but I don't see how that means that everything gay should be on the New Zealand gay rights page. If there isn't a "Gays and lesbians in <countryname>" or gay history standard, then perhaps there should be. It certainly seems like a better option than chucking a whole lot of stuff that doesn't really relate to gay rights onto the gay rights page. I mean, would you suggest that everything about black people go on a page about the abolition of slavery? --Helenalex 09:58, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
I see "rights" as encompassing a lot more than just legality. I believe it includes treatment by society, and since the Hero parades/festivals were in part both a chance for the general public to show their support for the gay community, and an opportunity for the gay community to show its existence to the public, I think they are very relevant. So is the section on openly gay people who were the first to hold various positions of responsibility, even though there have never been laws specifically on the sexuality of, for example, MPs.-gadfium 17:44, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
The problem here is that you seem to be seeing gay people / life solely in terms of how straight people treat them. Most of the things on the other page are tangentally relevant to rights, but then so are most things. To return to my above analogy, we could argue that instead of having a seperate biography page, information on Will Smith should be on the page about slavery since he never would have become a movie star if slavery hadn't been abolished. We wouldn't do that since his career is not really related to slavery, and people find it interesting in its own right. Likewise, there are many gay-related things which don't have much to do with rights that people are still interested in. For countries like the United States, these things are spread out over many different pages on subjects such as drag and other subcultures, gay slang, etc. Since New Zealand has a fairly small gay scene, it seems more appropriate to have one page which covers everything - the gay rights page doesn't do this because it focusses on rights. If there wasn't a gay rights category I would suggest that the NZ gay rights page be incorporated into the gay life page, as rights are a subset of life but not the other way around. As it is, I think it makes more sense to have two pages.
I'm not really sure what the problem is with this - its not like gays and lesbians are an obscure topic by Wikipedia standards, and the rights page would work a lot better if it focussed solely on rights rather than listing every gay MP, for example. --Helenalex 04:39, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I want to weigh in on this if that's ok. I would like to see the "gay rights in NZ" page as a subset of "gays and lesbians in New Zealand" because gay rights IS a subset of the gay and lesbian experience. It's an important and even essential subset, but not the whole experience, at least not any more. The rights page has just grown up higgledy-piggledy and for example, it lists the MPs as an attempt to ensure that all the firsts are noted - but the continuing election of gay MPs isn't really as important as it used to be (agreeing with Helenalex on this).

But its not right to say that Hero Parades had nothing to do with gay rights in New Zealand - it was a very significant development in gay rights in New Zealand and I don't think any of us involved in the Parades would disagree! So agreeing with gadfium on this point.

I think the issue is really that the gay rights page needs to be either a link from the "gays and lesbians in New Zealand" page, or else a significant part (but not the whole) of it. But gay rights is increasingly an historical issue (although not completely) and "gays and lesbians in New Zealand" is a way of representing that the place of gay people is established - which I think is indisputable now, really. I would be happy to contribute to the process of getting those pages rejigged in that kind of way.

Does this help?  :) Kiwimw 20:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy with the Gays and Lesbians in New Zealand article, on reflection and with the expansion and addition of references to that article. I don't agree with the comparison to slavery (because it isn't just about legalisation/abolition, but about civil rights too), but I don't think it's worth debating that here since I accept the central point. Some of the material in this article which isn't about legislation should be moved to the new article.-gadfium 07:50, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I knew you'd come round eventually :) I will get to work on both sites - I think the rights one can be a lot better, especially now it can focus specifically on rights. The slavery comparison was a bit heavy handed, I admit. Basically people tend to be a lot more sensitive to nuances concerning race and racism than concerning sexuality, and I wanted to draw a comparison that would make people think about the general issue rather than only in terms of gay stuff... I suppose black civil rights would have made more sense.
Kiwimw, we would love to have you contribute to both pages as well as any others you have experitise or interest in. --Helenalex 08:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Big gay edit

Okay... I have done a major rejig of the page, added a bit of material, cut other bits out:

  • I ended up keeping most of the MP stuff, but related it more to rights / reduction in homophobia
  • Got rid of the material on Don Brash. Now that he's not in parliament it seemed a bit pointless, especially since there are far more homophobic politicians than him.
  • Got rid of stuff about the property act originally excluding same sex couples etc. This didn't seem that important.
  • Removed the gay publications section to the 'gays and lesbians in New Zealand' page.
  • Mostly I just rearranged the page so that it is easier to follow.

Obviously a lot more is needed on law reform, either on this page or the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986 page. Someone also needs to do a proper Human Rights Act page. And stuff on pride events, especially the older ones, and I'm sure there's other stuff that needs expanding or fixing as well...

After doing most of this, I noticed there seems to be some kind of template which quite a few other countries use (see Gay rights in Hungary, for example). It has fewer categories than this page, although the categories it does have correspond reasonably well with the ones here. If anyone feels like making this page conform (with some extra categories, perhaps), go for it. I have been editing for many hours now and really can't be bothered. And I'm not sure it matters anyway. --Helenalex 08:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

good work! There are a couple of tiny amendments I will make but its now much more coherent and I agree with you about all the additions and deletions. I'm less interested in template stuff unless it is actually helpful, than I am in a structure that works. Kiwimw 09:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] a little biased?

does anyone else think the line "Although a significant percentage of the electorate is uncomfortable with what they see as the ‘social engineering’ of civil unions and other gay-friendly legislation," is a bit too biased and anti labour. is there any evidence to suggest a 'significant percentage' consider it 'social engineering'. some how i think not or there would be an actual percentage. i think the term 'social engineering' is paticularly harsh. what are others thoughts? plqgnmv —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.19.218 (talk) 21:40, 1 September 2007 (UTC)