Minister won’t rule out closing Gloriavale amid ‘horrendous’ abuse claims
A senior government minister has not ruled out closing Gloriavale, saying revelations in theHerald about a child disciplinary technique – likened to suffocation – are “horrendous”.
It comes as the Herald has discovered authorities are currently visiting Gloriavale “multiple” times a week and a new high-powered “multi-ministers” group has been set up to respond to ongoing issues at the West Coast commune.
Briefings from August this year obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act show 10 ministers are part of the group, which was quietly established after the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care issued its final report and recommendations.
Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston has been appointed the group’s lead minister.
The latest attempt to gain some type of accountability from the Gloriavale cult is back in the news and I think it’s time to ask, why we tolerate Gloriavale again?
As a liberal progressive democracy we all have to tolerate religion.
We never want a State to tell you what you can and can’t believe, the powers we would need to give the State to enable that level of coercion over the individual would immediately stop it being any type of State any of us would want to support.
You’d have stormtroopers smashing down temples, do we really want that?
If you want to believe in a magical invisible flying wizard for your day to day decisions, that’s your right, as insanely crazy as I think that is.
As good liberal progressive democrats, we have to tolerate freedom of religion because the alternative, a State that can compel you to believe only its truth, is vastly more damaging and dangerous.
And goodness don’t we tolerate religion here in NZ?
We tolerate that the churches don’t pay tax.
We tolerate Scientology – fucking Scientology!
We tolerate Bishop Brian Tamaki. Ugh.
If you as an adult want to believe this garbage, you are free to, just don’t expect me to have to play along with your fantasies.
What is most difficult however about tolerating these religious lunatics is when they stop educating their children so that they remain brainless worker drones for their magical invisible flying wizard.
The Gloriavale cult purposely stops young women from learning and becoming educated so that they effectively remain in domestic servitude!
What parent could ever hold their head high knowing they have purposely kept their children blind and stupid to the wonders of this world?
And it is this tolerance of freedom of religion that obligates us to fully support all Gloriavale survivors who manage to escape this cult with wrap around services and welfare benefits alongside constant outreach programs to ask if families wish to leave.
We tolerate these cultists because we tolerate religion, but by doing so we write off the children they purposely keep stupid. If anyone manages to escape, we have an obligation to support them because we so willingly turn a blind eye to their abuse in the name of tolerating their fucking religion!
We owe those who escape because we tolerate a system that abused them.
Look, I acknowledge the historic role Christianity had in building academia, the arts and the philosophical creation of the Western sense of the Individual, but we moved past being scared by that which we couldn’t explain and removed the limitations of angry invisible gods who want to punish us for our lack of faith and weekly tithing to the Church.
In the West, we won’t be controlled by the dead ghosts of yesterdays gods any longer, you want to believe in that, knock yourself out, welcome to freedom of choice, but fuck right off if you want to start making rules for the rest of us.
I have no problem enjoying the beauty of religion, the art of religion, the passion of religion, but I also enjoy the Marvel Cinematic Universe and I’m not praying to Tony Stark each night for an Iron Man flying battle suit with lasers, guided missiles and a billion dollars.
This isn’t just an anti-Christian position, I have this position against all religions. I tolerate them as well, but hold them at the same intellectual standards I would frightened children trying to explain what lightening and thunder is.
We have to allow Gloriavale to exist and we put up with the fake Bishop because NZ is a liberal progressive democracy and if you chose to live this weird life where your invisible magical flying wizard tells you to work on a farm in some strange rejection of modernity, then that is your right and our intrusion as the State should be the same as anyone else who gets accused of crimes and there is evidence.
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