My father’s hobby was breeding and racing thoroughbred racehorses. This could prove both lucrative and costly. One positive feature however was that he got to meet and befriend a host of interesting people and one of these was a man named Lou Fisher. Lou Fisher was an Australian and managed a theatrical company for David Nathan Martin. Martin was an Englishman who had settled in Australia and produced a great many stage shows that toured Australasia. Both men were Jewish.
Fisher was regular guest at our home whenever one of the Martin shows came to Wellington. On the odd occasion they were even staged in Masterton’s Regent Theatre. I recall he brought both English comedian Tommy Trinder and later pianist Winifred Atwell to Masterton. The upshot of all this was that our family always got the best seats in the house to these productions, I assume for gratis, and we were always invited backstage either at intermission or after the performance to meet and mingle with the cast.
On one occasion we had front seats in the dress circle at The Follies Bergere on Ice staged in Wellington’s grand Opera House. On that occasion I found myself sitting next to Walter Nash, at the time New Zealand’s Finance Minister and later to become the Labour Prime Minister. During the performance I noted that neither he nor his wife smiled, laughed or clapped like the rest of us did in the full-to-capacity theatre. He was perhaps the most dour man I had ever encountered.
On the journey home I talked about Mr Nash’s surprising lack of joviality with my parents. Dad said he was a deeply religious man and the risqué jokes and scantily clad young ladies would not have been to his taste. In the 1950’s risqué jokes weren’t really that risky and there was absolutely no profanity. In fact in David Martin’s biography he was quoted as saying that there were two things he couldn’t abide and they were “off-colour comedians and overweight chorus girls.”
Backstage, after the show, as a pimply pubescent teenager, I certainly enjoyed meeting the perfectly-proportioned female cast!
This has been a long prologue to where I’m heading, but I thought about all this last Wednesday night when I saw those who had inherited Walter Nash’s political party laughing, dancing in the aisles and clapping at the passing of the marriage equality bill. I tried to imagine Walter Nash, whose framed picture is still a feature on most Labour party office walls, sitting in the gallery with the predominantly gay crowd and wondered just what he would have thought about the surprising turn of events.
Earlier in the evening I had watched Campbell Live where a poll of viewers voted against same-sex marriage 78 per cent to 22. Hardly scientific I admit, but you could argue that many members of parliament chose not to vote the way the constituents might have wanted.
Somewhat surprisingly, the gay marriage debate was set alight by three unlikely heroes, Dr. Paul Hutchinson, Chris Auchinvole and Maurice Williamson - all of them grey-haired, conservative MPs.
Williamson became an overnight celebrity....well overnight really. The New York Times called him a gay icon which came as a bit of a shock to his wife and Ellen DeGeneres is desperate for him to appear on her show. He could even consider resigning from parliament and go on the lucrative world-wide speaking circuit. It’s made a small fortune for Sarah Palin.
In hindsight the three National MPs were probably wise to tread the course they did. Liberal causes inevitably become mainstream and those who oppose them are sometimes made to look foolish years later when the imagined moral degradation and other dire consequences predicted simply don’t eventuate.
Sanctioning same-sex marriage is all very well, but I am fearful of legalising so-called “recreational” drugs which I suspect is the next raft of permissive legislation on the horizon.
It is more than likely that our next government will be a coalition between Labour and the Greens and with that unholy alliance, anything could happen.
A couple of weeks ago Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei claimed on Maori TV’s Native Affairs programme that Maori growing marijuana are developing entrepreneurial and horticultural proficiencies. She said growing the illegal drug helps develop “real skills” among Maori, particularly in disadvantaged areas.
Decriminalising marijuana is a Green Party policy and is certain to be a condition of their coalescing with Labour, so we’d better start steeling ourselves for the degrading affect this will have on society.
However I tend to agree with Mr Williamson that the sky won’t fall with the passing of the gay marriage legislation.
From 1840 to 1867 homosexual activity amongst the male population wasn’t only illegal in New Zealand, it was punishable by death. It was finally legalised in Fran Wilde led legislation in 1986.
I’m happy, just as long as they don’t make it compulsory.
