Over at Kiwiblog David Farrar has criticised AUSA for not agreeing to endorse and support Pro Life Auckland in its quest to help young mothers.
Apparently Pro-Life Auckland wanted to set up a fund to pay for the child care costs of solo mother students attending university with kids. So far so good. They were hoping to be able to support at least one student a term. Good on them.
They approached the executive of the AUSA seeking support for promotion of their proposal.
AUSA considered the matter, and in a carefully worded response declined to do so on the basis that support was not appropriate because AUSA policy ran counter to Pro-Life Auckland’s views.
Again you would think that this was fair enough. After all there is no obligation for a union to publicly support another organisation especially when there is concern about the other organisation’s policies. If the Tally brothers set up a scholarship for apprentices to pay for their fees and asked the Meat Workers Union to promote it the Union would be well within its rights to decline. Or take it to the extreme. If the KKK asked the AUSA to promote its annual pillowcase collection and the AUSA declined to do so would this be such a bad thing?
But apparently to decline to publicly endorse the proposal of an entity with rather bizarre views on the rights of women is akin to shutting them down and infringing their freedom of speech. Farrar’s words were more careful than this but the resulting dog whistle caused comments questioning AUSA’s decision on that basis.
Farrar said that he was pro choice but “AUSA should not be refusing a genuine offer of assistance to students, just because they don’t agree with the views of the group” and “an Auckland student who may have been able to get their childcare costs paid for, now won’t be able to, unless Pro-life can work around AUSA”. Two slight problems. AUSA is not refusing to allow Pro-Life Auckland from making the offer to students and AUSA is not stopping Pro-Life Auckland from making the offer. I know, details, details …
The resulting comments are an eye opener. My commiserations to mikenmild who seems to spend a lot of time trying to talk sense to the rabid right.
The comment of the thread was one where a commentator without a shred of irony said “you’re a Liberal-Leftist PC idiot who writes women as wimmin, so of course Liberal-Leftist bullying is fine with you”. Bullying must have a different meaning when the right engage in it.
Of course Pro Life can still offer the sponsorship. Not having AUSA’s endorsement I am sure will not mean that desperate students will turn down free or subsidised child care.
And you have to wonder. The right is all about voluntary membership of student unions but insists on compulsion when an unpopular and misguided organisation insists on formal student union support.
The level of weirdness surrounding this is high. A private entity deciding not to publicly endorse and support another entity is neither discrimination nor a breach of the other entity’s freedom of expression. That the National Party pollster should choose to stoke these extremist views is concerning.
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