A serving of soup curbs Posie Parker’s appetite for speaking – and shows that might is right in protecting NZ from “ugly” ideas

Jonathan Milne, managing editor for Newsroom Pro, has expressed his indignation about the outcome of a court decision yesterday in an article headed Posie Parker wins the beautiful freedom to make an ugly argument.

Newsroom Pro laments:

High Court Justice David Gendall has regretfully allowed an outspoken anti-trans activist to enter New Zealand, but warns the expression of her views may be harmful to our vulnerable rainbow community. Jonathan Milne does his best to be civil.

Milne is very civil in saying Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, who calls herself Posie Parker, is entitled to her own identity, and to expect the basic civility from others of recognising that identity. And then:

I do wish she’d show that same civility to others. 

We look forward to the follow-up article that might well be headed Posie Parker’s right to exercise a beautiful freedom is muzzled by ugly political activists.

Milne is sure to express his thoughts on civil behaviour among protesters – isn’t he? – when he opines on what happened today, according to this report in the New Zealand Herald.

The report is headed Posie Parker tour of NZ: Anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull quits rally after being pelted with soup and begins:

More than 2000 counter-protesters – including one armed with a bottle of tomato soup – have seen British anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull aborting her central Auckland rally.

And she is now considering cancelling a planned Wellington speaking event, revealing that a threatening note had been left under the door of her Auckland hotel room.

Oh dear. But was she able to demonstrate her prowess at delivering  an ugly argument?

The numbers of people who turned up to listen to that argument is not stated, but the Herald does suggest it is comparatively small, which means might is right when it comes to muzzling opinions that might be unpopular among a small but well organised group of dissidents:  

In ugly scenes Keen-Minshull has been pelted by soup as she attempts to hold her Let Women Speak tour – but is drowned out by protesters galvanised by the LGBTQIA+ community. She has now been escorted out of Albert Park.

A skirmish broke out with pushing and shoving between the counter-protest group and Keen-Minshull’s much smaller entourage. Destiny Church leader Brian Tamaki turned up to join the minority of Keen-Minshull supporters.

The soup-hurling protester was removed by security but Keen-Minshull’s attempts to speak were drowned out by drums, chants of “go home” and, at one point, a Whitney Houston song playing over the loudspeakers.

Speakers at the rally were criticising sex education in schools and trans athletes, the Herald said.

Ugly stuff, eh?

The Herald gives some other numbers:

Around 500 Destiny Church supporters are at the rally, holding signs which say “Let our kids be kids” and “We represent fed up families”.

The association between the Destiny Church rally and Posie Parker’s disrupted rally is not explained.  It is reasonable to suppose the church mob turned up in the hope of getting into the headlines.

It is unclear from the Herald report whether Posie Parker had the chance to say much that was ugly, threatening, insensitive  or illegal.

We do know there were ugly scenes and we know that throwing soup on someone is illegal.

We look forward to hearing Milne demanding the book be thrown at the soup thrower.

Meanwhile, Point of Order draws attention to two articles which raise serious questions about the credibility of the mainstream media’s reportage of Posie Parker’s speeches and her audiences.

This  appeared on Kiwiblog:

Guest Post: Posie Parker and the Week the Media Lost Its Collective Mind

On Saturday 18 March, in Melbourne, a group of mostly women gathered outside Victoria’s Parliament. Lead by a petite blonde Brit the “Let Women Speak” rally was supposed to be an opportunity for women to share the personal impact of gender self-identification (ie. males being able to identify as women based purely on their say-so) and male violence.

A group of men (though that’s a harmful assumption since no one asked their pronouns) dressed in black and wearing balaclavas were facilitated by police to crash the rally. Why this was allowed by police has never been explained. Because clearly what a group of women want at a rally about their sex-based safeguarding and protection is masked men.

The black clad invaders then performed Nazi salutes on the steps of Parliament and unfurled a sign. At which point a group of women, many of whom had gathered to talk about the impact of male violence on their lives were *checks notes* roundly condemned for not acting violently toward masked men. And on social media and in the press the two were then conflated into one evil entity.

What has followed in the last week can only be called a damning indictment on the legacy media in both Australia and New Zealand. Leaving what they sneeringly call “alternative” media to be the only platform where actual facts and balance can be gleaned.

This writer notes that the Australian Jewish Association had members at the event and has issued a statement criticizing both the policing and stating “it is shameful that some politicians and media are now trying to smear this women’s movement with the false accusation of involvement with Nazis.”

But never mind them. After all, what would Jews know about Nazis.

And:

The idea, the very notion, that women might want to gather together IN PUBLIC and talk about the outrageous notion that sometimes, just sometimes, some women want spaces away from male bodies, regardless of how those bodies identify, unleashed what kind only be described as a tidal wave of self-righteous performative coverage from people who self-identify as journalists.

The writer provides a sample of egregious examples:

One of these is a NewsHub account of Ms Keen allegedly using a hand signal linked to white supremacy on a YouTube video.

The article further notes that in Melbourne the three people arrested were all transgender activists.

A second article, on a site called Mercatornet, is headed Don’t let women speak, especially not Moira Deeming

This looks into why Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto wants to expel Moira Deeming from the state’s Parliamentary Liberal Party.

Deeming, recently elected to represent Melbourne’s Western Metropolitan Region in Victoria’s Upper House, last weekend attended and spoke at the Let Women Speak event in Melbourne which featured Posie Parker.

The rally had broad support from women and men from across politics. It was organised by Angela Jones, a left-wing, pro-gay rights Jewish woman. Muslims, Jews and Christians were in attendance, as were people with no faith commitment. The aim of the event was to give a voice to women who are concerned with preserving women’s rights, public spaces and sporting categories from invasion by biological males.

Unfortunately, the event was hijacked by a small rabble of uninvited guests wearing masks, shouting aggressively, and clad in black. It became clear the gatecrashers were neo-Nazis when they performed a Hitler salute on the steps of Parliament House. According to eyewitness reports, Victoria Police made no initial attempts to remove the group and even appeared to deliberately let them in.

Moira Deeming and Posie Parker both unreservedly denounced the neo-Nazi gatecrashers as soon as they were made aware of the situation.

Pesutto insists the organisers of the Let Women Speak event — including Moira Deeming — have established links to neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

He claimed that Posie Parker had made videos and shared platforms with known neo-Nazis Jean-Francois Gariepy, Richard Spencer, Mark Collett, and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

It later came to light that Pesutto’s source for this intel was Posie Parker’s Wikipedia page, which was riddled with misinformation thanks to online trolls.

Greens Senator for Tasmania Nick McKim declared to the Australian Senate that Posie Parker and her ilk were TERDs, or Trans-Exclusionary Right-wing Dropkicks.

This is what happens when women speak. Powerful men call them Nazis and TERDs, and dismiss their concerns entirely. The media launders every lie told about them as “news”, ensuring the cheap smears stick.

Meanwhile, Australians never even heard what was said at the rally.

A video link is included to enable readers to see and hear for themselves what Moira Deeming was doing.