Minister Williamson sets bad example with bigoted jokes

I was reported Wednesday in a New Zealand Herald article entitled “Minister slammed over racially tinged jokes”:

The comments prompted Dave Moscovitz [sic], a member of the NZ Council of Christians and Jews, to complain to Mr Williamson.

“I was disgusted by your comments making jokes at the expense of Muslims and Pacific Islanders,” he wrote in an email yesterday.

“Please explain in what way you think those comments might have been appropriate.

“As a Government minister, you should be aware that you are role-modelling behaviour for the whole country, and should be seen to be building constructive relationships between NZ’s increasingly diverse ethnic and religious groups.”

It all comes back to something my mother used to say to me whenever I did anything that was ethically questionable, such as littering: “What would the world be like if everyone did that”?