The Curious Case of Pride vs the Lesbians: Part 8

Round-up of media coverage and other writing on the case

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Read my full The Curious Case series for background, context and a user-friendly overview of some of the legal aspects of the case.

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It’s done. On Tuesday 4th and Wednesday 5th both parties made their closing submissions.

I’ll probably add my two cents about the most recent developments later but, well, it’s all very exciting. The LAVA case is actually being talked about, on X, in Substacks, by old school journalists, by legal commentators, and even in mainstream media. There’s some really great fair reporting, some impassioned opinion pieces, some legal analysis, FSU’s arguments around the issues of free speech, and The Spinoff’s most recent piece which I think probably meets the ISO standard of a hit job.

By coincidence, writer and women’s rights superstar Helen Joyce’s tour of New Zealand, hosted by the Women’s Rights Party and FSU, coincided with the last days of the hearing, and Helen also brought attention to the case.

The really key thing that broke the dam was funnily enough, the Human Rights Review Tribunal’s (HRRT) decision to issue a non-publication order on the case. This meant that only accredited journalists could report, and the public were forbidden from taking notes. Sticking to the letter, HRRT then refused to let two well-established journalists, Jenny Ruth and Helen Joyce, from being counted as media. Jenny Ruth wrote about it and FSU got on to the case. This caused an entirely new set of eyes to look at the case. A whole lot of people started wondering exactly what was going on behind the door of Room 5.01 of the Wellington District Court, and why commonly held principles of open justice weren’t being applied.

Here’s my list of coverage since the case first started back in July. Add any others in the comments. NOTE: This table doesn’t work properly in the Substack app (which you may have installed on your phone) so jump on and look at it on a big screen or through a browser like Chrome.

And a couple of tweets for fun.