Thomas Scovell

There was a fuss in the local press this week when a local gym linked to a particularly naff article in their weekly newsletter.

An Auckland gym franchise owner has apologised for a newsletter to members which included a link to an article entitled “Soy is making kids gay”.

Club Physical member John Kingi said he planned to cancel his gym membership after the article, by conservative American writer Jim Rutz, which said “homosexuality is always deviant”, was included in the gym’s newsletter.

In the article, Rutz claimed soy was “feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality”. [ stuff.co.nz ]

One of the “outraged” members quoted works at Rainbow Youth which reminded me they have a relatively new website, designed during the 2009 fullcodepress content. I was a member of the winning team of this slighty crazy “website in a day” competition in 2007. There’s some nice work by the 2009 New Zealand winning team on the site.

Rainbow Youth is an Auckland-based organisation that provides support, information, advocacy and education for queer young people and their families.

Rainbow Youth

Given the news I figure they’re a suitable charity for the week. They have “regular donation” options – these just require giving contact details wherein the contact you back to arrange I’m sure. And merchandise “for sale” – which requires emailing. The only direct online donation is a one-off via Paypal – which is the easiest method for taking money online without setup costs – and probably the only thing you can implement in a 24-hour competition!

This worked well – until I was sent back to the site after the Paypal donation – where I received an error page. I received a confirmation from Paypal via email so I’m sure the money has gone through – but the fact that this error occurred doesn’t instill confidence. Hopefully they’ll fix that up soon. Don’t let that stop you donating to an organisation that does a lot of good work.