Opinion: Mayor responds to stinging email

Simon Watts (left) with Mayor K. Gurunathan and Sean Mallon.

Weekly column by Kāpiti Mayor K. Gurunathan.

Bouquets and brickbats, as the saying goes, are part of the reward and occupational hazards faced by elected members. It's the nature of the beast. Following the announcement of my intention not to stand again: I'd like to thank all those who wrote, and those who spoke to me, thanking me for my services to our communities over the past 12 years. Especially those who noted this was despite not agreeing with my views, and some of council's decisions.

Then, there was this one email from a person who obviously had a direct line to God that is worth quoting: "Today when I heard you were resigning I Praised God ... This is the best news I have heard since the beginning of this pandemic. You have caused harm and disadvantaged men and women of Kāpiti ... all is written before the Father, nothing is hidden from Him, nor your prior doings. Your lips may flatter the Lord, but your heart is far from Him, your father is the deceiver. Lest you forget."

It must have been God's sense of humour for me to receive this mail on the same day as a visit to my office from Opposition spokesman for local government Simon Watts. One of the points I made to Simon was about how the local government sector always gets it in the neck from our ratepayers and communities for the perceived negative impacts of legislation churned out by central governments. Parliament makes the rules and regulations and local councils are directed to give it effect, monitor, regulate and enforce them. Worse, these mandates from Parliament land on our local patches without any taxpayers' funds. Councils are forced to hire more staff and increase the rates imposed on locals to manage these unfunded mandates. I'm not sure Simon appreciated that "getting it in the neck" can also include the curses of those having a direct line to God. But Simon did say his party was looking at the funding problems faced by councils. We'll just have to wait and see.

But it will be remiss of me not to have some kind of response to that self-proclaimed man of God. I do so by just reminding him, and those of similar ilk, of the "infallible" words of the Bible. Romans 13:1-7: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment ..." And so it continues.

But how does my Christian friend with a direct line to God manage to understand this verse. My council has on the Covid pandemic followed the guidelines set by the central government of the day for the common good, which is to safeguard the vulnerable and the health system that looks after everybody. Or is the father of the person who wrote these verses a deceiver? I don't have a direct line to God, so I don't know.

This Romans 13 verse has been criticised by others who have noted that such blanket acceptance has been used by deceivers to justify oppressive regimes like South Africa under the apartheid regime. Deconstructing established realities can be complicated.

Talking of which, there has been heated online reaction to the Kāpiti Library holding an event recently where a couple of drag queens were telling their story to kids. This was part of the library's exploring its continued role to embrace diversity through inclusiveness. I understand the library had an event titled Woman Loving Woman and a separate one with a couple of drag queens telling their stories. The online Kapiti Independent News conflagrated this by giving the impression that the drag queen event was part of the Woman Loving Woman event. This cracked open a very engaged reaction by those opposed to drag queens referring to this as a fetish behaviour by men and exposing children to this was encouraging grooming. The debate included one observation that biology is real, and humans can't change sex. There's a view that notes gender is a socio-cultural construct, but biological sex is not.

It's been an interesting and challenging debate in an area I'm not even marginally informed enough. What I know as real has been the journey involving a close family friend. The daughter had been increasingly distraught going through her teens. Highly stressed, withdrawn and even suicidal until a series of counselling unravelled the situation. She saw herself as a male trapped in a female body. Coming out and sharing this with family and close friends had an immediate effect. "She" became totally different. The acute stress was gone, and "he" was happy. More counselling and hormone therapy saw "her" transition into a male. Yes, there is all this intellectual pontification and deconstruction going on, but this transition I witness had a profound impact on me.

And a thought sometimes haunts me. What if there had been no help to make this journey and this trapped person had taken an exit out of life? One of the diverse roles of libraries is to stimulate thinking and ideas and, inevitably, conflicting values will emerge. Even here, in the pursuit of diversity through inclusiveness, will it be acceptable to have Satan worshippers or the KKK ply their views along the book-lined corridors of our libraries. Maybe I should just ring God, if only I can get his/her/shim's direct line.