FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sacked Northland teacher speaking at Marriage Equality Conference
Nigel Studdart, a teacher sacked from Northland’s Pompallier College for standing up against homophobia, will be
speaking at Wellington’s marriage equality conference. Entitled “The fight against homophobia: schools, workplaces,
families and elsewhere,” this event will be held 6:30pm, Saturday the 1st of December at St Andrew’s on the Terrace.
Studdart was sacked in September, when he supported students who planned to wear rainbow wristbands. The principle had
written in the school newsletter that gay parents are unfit to raise children, spurring protest from students. Studdart
stated at the time that “Obviously I feel really upset that I’ve lost my job, but I couldn’t have done anything else
quite honestly. And every time I get another message it really confirms what I did was the right thing to do.”
“We support Studdart taking a principled stand,” says conference organiser Rawa Karetai. “We’re looking forward to
having him speak.” Also speaking on Saturday’s panel will be long-time queer activist Bill Logan and Green Party MP Jan
Logie. The conference will be held over the weekend of the 29th of November to the 2nd of December in Wellington.
The National Marriage Equality Conference will be held in Wellington from 30 November until 2 December to discuss the
struggle for marriage equality, queer struggles and beyond.
For more information about conference please visit: www.legaliselove.org.nz
The conference has been organised by the Campaign for Marriage Equality Wellington Group, Queer Avengers, Legalise love
and public individuals working cohesively for marriage equality and other queer related issues.
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