Tamihere and gays

John Tamihere’s latest interview makes me wonder about why he has such a negative view of gays.

I can quite understand some resentment, for example, over being pressured to vote for civil unions etc.

But to say:

“I’m very strong on lifting the performance of kiwi males particularly young males in the next couple of years – heterosexual males i’m talking about and I just want to put greater influence on the right to attract men back into the education again so they can pay affection to kids – i think that’s right,” he says.

I mean, how do you take that? That performing well at school should only be something for heterosexuals? Why on earth did he feel the need to qualify his statement like that?

It’s one thing to be having a go at the “gay lobby” within your party, but to be sending out a message to gay kids (who already have a very high suicide rate) that he is only interested in heterosexuals doing well at school, is I suggest rather bizarre. I mean what if he had said he was only interested in high performance for white kids?