- When it comes to the church and queerness, it's complicated ` like, really complicated. I grew up going to the church and secretly being gay ` don't tell anyone ` and I remember even once I saw an ex-gay speaker who claimed to have cured himself. Yeah, sure, mate. It's pretty clear you can't pray the gay away, but that hasn't stopped some churches throughout history from trying to get people to just stop being gay. Let's explore this contentious relationship from the very beginning. - It's time to get back to the morality of this nation. - CROWD CHANT: Enough is enough! - Conversion therapy is a sick practice. - There's a lot of full 'fearness' that has happened to our communities, not just as a Gay community, but as Maori. - I thought I was broken fundamentally, right deep inside. - This behaviour is unnatural, and it's abnormal. - With conversion therapy not being able to offer any prayer for us, it's horrendous. - Salvation Army money being spent on persecution of gay people. Transphobia, biphobia, homophobia, inter-phobia are inherently racist because they are colonial constructs. - Your career is all but over. How does it feel? - This law is simplistic and an overreach. - I seriously say to the National Party, you are on the wrong side of history. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2025 - Prior to colonisation, if you look into Indigenous-Pacific communities, what you would find is that Queer people were integral to their societies. Hawaii had mahu, Papua New Guinea had palopa, Fiji had vakasalewalewa, Aotearoa had takatapui. - We're a very sex-positive people, that the missionaries, the Puritans, did not appreciate that at all, that we spoke openly about sex. I mean, we had a whole genre of songs about that. Who you loved, who you shared your body with, that was your business. - My people were very religious. To a certain extent, it came from the British when they arrived and colonised New Zealand, and with the trade came the religion, um, and we took to` my people took to religion very readily because we're a very spiritual people anyway. - The very first time we ever see queerness being punished is when the British colonisers imposed English law on to our lands. - Sex between two males was made illegal in New Zealand in 1858, when the country adopted England's laws, which criminalised buggery. (SCOFFS) I haven't heard that word in a while. In 1883, the law was broadened to include any form of sexuality between men. - They colonised us, they criminalised us, and then they conditioned our people to believe that homophobia and transphobia was inherently what their culture stood for. - We were told that our carvings of our ancestors within our ancient meeting houses are demonic. So what did our ancestors do? They were told to burn them, burn these carvings or bury them in swamps. The result of that would see that a huge majority our marae in the north actually have no carvings in them because of that. - And as they colonised, you know, they refined their style. Uh, they had little tricks ` like the first book they translate into the local language is the Bible. So all of these things will reinforce their leadership, their paternalistic role to teach us the right way to be. - Now, you just think about the internal conflicts that it does for Maori and how we view ourselves, our art, our stories that we've been doing for centuries ` told that it was demonic and that if we didn't remove it, we won't be going to heaven. - So even at the age of 30, I'm still trying to navigate what religion looks like to me, because I guess the deeper delve into religion, you find out that Tonga had their own kind of religion before Western influences, and so to this day, I'm in this battle in my head, like... I was accepted before Western influences. And now that Western influences have come in, I'm not accepted. - The framework that I had growing up was in the Baptist Church. So going to church was at least weekly, sometimes several times a week growing up. When I first realised when I was gay, I was 15 years old, spoke to my youth pastor, and I just said, (WHISPERS) 'I think I might be gay. 'I think I might, you know` I'm attracted to men.' It was a battle. It was the beginning of a battle there, uh, inside of myself. - I came from, I suppose, what I now call a working-class family. My dad was a taxi driver. My mum was one of the first Samoan social workers in New Zealand, and so we grew up in a house that had a lot of really great social justice values, uh, and the church was a really important part of our life. (ALL SING JOYFULLY) - My parents didn't really know anyone here, so really they just connected with the nearest Tongan church that was closest to us, um, and so we've been at the same church a whole life, and so I guess that's what's kind of helped keep the culture alive. And my parents could only speak Tongan growing up, and so, um, yeah, it's all we kind of knew, was just our Tongan culture. - I was born in Fiji, which is a conservative Christian island, and I was born in a very small village, which was close-knit. I remember one time... there was one Queer person in my village that I could look up to, and I saw the kids spit at this person, throw rubbish at them, and... yell slurs. And in that moment, I kind of realised that should I accept my true self as a Queer person, this will be my reality. - Back in 2004, one of the biggest confrontations between the Rainbow community and a Christian group was the battle over same-sex unions. - CROWD CHANT: Enough is enough! - REPORTER: Marching with a message, more than 7000 Christians in protest at the civil unions bill. - We're here because we're concerned with the future and the direction of our nation. - I still remember the Enough is Enough march in 2004. It was horrible, because a sea of mainly Maori men yelling against our community as if every single one of them is not related to someone who is takatapui. - A transgender MP, Georgina Beyer, who marched in support of the Civil Unions Bill, said she felt the Destiny crowd were menacing. - It was the attitude that accompanied the gestures. It was angry. It was threatening. (CROWD CHANT ANGRILY) - And the iconic moment of Georgina coming down the steps and challenging. - One of my friends witnessed it and said she flew out of Parliament like a bat out of hell. - And she just rounded on them and she was like, 'You should be ashamed of yourselves.' - Your hatred is totally intolerable! - I mean, watching Georgina, like, bash him was just one of the greatest joys and gifts. I can just take such delight in when she just annihilates him ` and she does. - How dare you use the cloak of Christianity when you are imparting to your children prejudice, discrimination toward people like me, gays and lesbians. - It certainly gives me the tingles whenever I see videos of it, because she's so powerful. - Have you got another message other than 'Jesus loves you'? - It was really incredible to see actually, like, a powerful member of the community just basically tell Destiny's Church where to go... - They're terrible people. - ...and I think they actually tipped the scales. We have to thank them because middle New Zealand looked at it and said, 'We're not that,' and passed the civil unions bill. - We've now opened the door to every type of sexual perversion. I really fear for our children and our grandchildren's future. - When my dad joined Destiny Church, he was lost, vulnerable, addicted to drugs. He said to me, 'I love you, but I hate sin.' I could see through all of that. I could see he was being manipulated. And ain't no church stopped our beautiful, loving relationship, you know. - I always believe that there's room enough for all of us in this world. And if you've got nothing nice to say, then fuck off. - For some Queer people, their church noticed their sexuality often when they were still young and figuring things out, and offered them so-called 'solutions' to make them straight. - When I was 16, I was taken to a counsellor about my sexuality. What he saw it as and what he described it as was sex addiction therapy. - I knew I had feelings for males, I knew that I wanted to be gay, but I was probably conflicted by the expectations of my family ` you know, the cultural norms, the societal norms. Yeah, I didn't want to be different from anyone else. When I became a pastor, every day I would wake up and I'd be thinking that, 'You are broken. You need healing. God can and wants to heal you, 'and you need this in order for you to be a full, uh, restored person.' - He sat there at the beginning of the session, and he said, 'You know, I've... I've really tried to understand, you know, who you are and where you're coming from, 'and I think you'll be glad to know you're not gay.' And I was ecstatic. - Uh, you try to, um, look to role models to help bat this horrific thing that you're experiencing out of your life. - The temple leaders would tell you that if you told your family that you were Queer, they would disown you. So it was either going to conversion therapy and be abused, or be thrown out of your village and be abandoned by your family, the only things you'd ever known and loved. So I really had no choice. - Conversion therapy can involve various methods to change or suppress your sexuality. These abusive practices occurred not only in the religious setting, but also within state care. - I can remember being driven to a psychiatric ward. I can recall a doctor who treated me. I would see him once or twice a week. He would ask me all sorts of questions about being a lesbian. They also performed electroconvulsive therapy on me. I believe this was over 200 times during the course of the 12 years. It felt like razor blades going through my body. You were fully awake during this time. I felt so humiliated. I felt like I had no reason to live. I hated myself. I feel that treatment I got was definitely a form of conversion therapy, but I knew that nothing was going to change me. It didn't matter what they did, nothing was ever going to change the way that I was. I knew that what I was was what I was. - And it started off as benign things, as prayers, and then wearing enchanted bracelets that were meant to rid you of the evil spirits that were making you Queer. And obviously, they didn't frighten me off, the evil spirits that were making me Queer. And soon the prayers would escalate into... beatings. - I started to become exposed to what they call conversion therapy, better known as conversion practices. I really immersed myself in that world for about 15 years. Um, I suppose looking back now, there was elements of depression there, and it was the first time in my life that actually I was starting to feel like I wanted to end it, really, um, yeah, because I just felt like there was no way out for me, yeah. - Many New Zealand churches, including some pretty mainstream ones, would hire Sy Rogers, a leader of the ex-gay movement, to speak to their followers about how they, too, could cure themselves. This was happening quite recently, and it even happened at a church I went to. - Experts in the field of psychosexual development and hormonal research make it absolutely clear that there is no inborn predisposition genetically, biologically, or hormonally toward homosexuality. - When I went to an ex-gay conference with my mum, (SNICKERS) when I was 16, um, at a local church, it was run by Sy Rogers, who's been active both in America and in New Zealand. - Homosexuality will touch your life. Someone you know or love is gay, but not everybody who is gay wants to be. Happily homosexuality can be overcome. - It was a turning point too, because I looked around, and I was by far the youngest one there, and I could tell how lonely a lot of the people there were, a lot of the men who were there. - We were advised to separate and to divorce and that Harry would never be healed. - And I... I looked at them, and it wasn't until a bit later that I remembered it and thought, 'If they're still fighting it, if they're still fighting it into their 60s, 'what hope do I have of overcoming it?' - I was at my 40th birthday, and as I looked around the room, I realised here are all these people celebrating me, but actually I'm not happy, and in fact I'm very lonely. I just felt profoundly lonely. It started to then make me reflect on all the conversion practices that I tried continuously over the years, and always failed. And then I started to think, 'Hey, maybe actually, Andre, that the problem isn't you after all. 'Maybe these conversion practices don't work. 'Maybe you are just meant to accept who you are. 'Maybe I'm not broken. 'Maybe it's OK to be gay.' I was very aware that a lot of people were looking up to me as a pastor, but I also realised as long as I had that job, I wouldn't be able to even explore if, um... if I could be gay. But I really wanted to, um, know that I wanted to make these choices for myself, and I didn't want to be pushed out of my job because of my acceptance of who I was. So... by the end of that year, I resigned. - REPORTER: Israel Folau on his way out. Australia Rugby's integrity unit today deeming his comments bad enough to sack him. - Israel Folau made headlines on both sides of the Tasman for his social media posts, claiming that homosexuals are going to hell. This posed a dilemma for Andre, a man who had just come out of the closet. - As I was watching that debate go on, I was becoming increasingly concerned, cos I seen people from Pacific communities who were really seeing this issue and really taking side with the ideological view of Israel Folau. - He's right, 100%. - Why is that? - Because it says in the Bible. - And I thought as an ex-pastor, as someone who had now reconciled my love for God as well as my own sexual orientation, I thought, um, there needs to be another voice. I decided to share my story as an ex-pastor, as a Samoan and gay person. My fear was an unintended consequence of this debate, it was going to force another generation of people like me further back into the closet, and I thought, 'This is time to speak up.' And I was only one of those voices. There were many others in my community that were starting to speak up about that at the time too. - A movement was initiated to challenge the government to ban sexual conversion practices. - And that's my message to... to young me lying in my bed questioning my sexuality, was that, 'Today, we are here because you are valid.' Conversion therapy is disgusting. We reject it, and we can see that our lawmakers and our community are standing strong against it. - 'Conversion practices is based on an ideology that we're fundamentally broken and that we can be fixed.' We're not broken. We're born exactly as we were meant to. For someone to say that we're damaged and that we need to be fixed is the problem ` and that's what conversion practices do. They want to change us to be not broken. - In 2019, Shaneel Lal delivered a speech as a youth MP that helped reintroduce the fight against conversion therapy into the public consciousness. - Madam Speaker, when I woke up this morning, I didn't look in the mirror and say, 'Oops, I'm gay, better fix that.' (LAUGHTER) Because like any rational person, I know my sexuality was not a choice. I did my speech on banning conversion therapy and I posted it to social media, and it went viral. 33 years ago, homosexuality was a crime. Six years ago, same-sex marriage was illegal. But to this day, it is completely legal to torture someone to change their sexuality in the name of conversion therapy. The Labour Party simply would not commit to banning conversion therapy leading up to the election. and so we convinced the media to hound them, and we did very well. - I have said that I want to talk with the Greens, and we'll do that next week. - We're launching a petition to ban conversion therapy sooner rather than later. We got nearly 160,000 signatures in one week. It was mind-blowing. No one expected that, but it was the temperature of where the country is at. - Leaders in some churches across New Zealand publicly supported the ban on conversion practices. - We call today on our leaders to step up. - We had priests from around the country, we had nuns, we had laypeople, ministers come in and saying, 'We support this bill. 'In no way does it breach our right to religion or belief.' - Judith Collins was more volatile than the economy during a recession. - I was taken out of context on why I was saying, 'Why would anyone want to do that to someone else?' as in gay conversion therapy for someone else? That's what that was. - And then she voted against it at first reading, and then she lost her position as the leader of the National Party... - And I just wish everyone well. - Do you regret last minute that statement? - Never. - ...and then voted for it at second and third reading. - And so when it came in and we got the highest number of submissions for a bill ever, 103,000. - We had overwhelming support. Went to second reading and third reading and passed with a significant majority. - It rights a wrong, a hurtful, insidious, destructive wrong. But it also sends a message, a message of love, support and affirmation to all in the Rainbow communities. - The ban on conversion therapy was a win for humanity because it truly recognised that Queer rights were human rights. - I'm never going to tell anybody how to believe in God. You've got a religion and that's what you believe, I accept that. But when it affects me as a gay person, that's when I say nah. - I think that we need to know what New Zealand was like and how we've changed... and what people did go through. And it's been the absolute best thing for me, um, through me speaking out so people don't have to go through what I went through. - I want Pacific and non-Pacific Christian-Rainbow-identifying people to feel they can be their whole selves, that they don't have to choose between their love of family, their love of God, and their love of themselves and accepting who they are. - There's a process of unlearning. It's a bit like it is for people who leave a cult environment. And part of what makes that process so difficult, particularly for young people who grew up in the church, is that there are things that you get from being in a church that we don't get in our society any more, aspects of community that we've otherwise abandoned, and so it takes a lot of time to kind of peel that apart. - The Rainbow community has had a long and complicated history with the Christian faith. Many are on a journey of reconciling their faith with their sexuality. I know as someone who grew up Christian, for me, I've been on a journey my whole life trying to work out what values I learnt at church that I still hold close to myself, while at times kind of reconciling that with the hateful ways some churches have behaved. Loving thy neighbour, though, is the most important lesson in the Bible, I reckon. So maybe let's do more of that. Captions by Tom Clarke. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air.