Dear fellow colleagues, students, and individuals,

There has been an ongoing dilemma at the moment concerning a certain religious organization, who has been occasionally renting out a space within AUT’s (Auckland University of Technology) halls on Sundays. Equippers Church, as some of you may have heard, has been renting out one of the lecture halls at AUT on the grounds of religious purposes.

However, we ask those reading to take a moment of your time to understand the implications as to why it is harmful and dangerous for such a specific church to have affiliations with our university.

It has come to our attention, that Equippers Church, provided with lengthy evidence, has been known to have associated itself with some very concerning remarks and values, regarding their stances on conversion therapy, abortion, and same-sex marriage. As of the 2nd of October 2023, Debate Magazine has issued an article regarding the situation. This also comes into recent light of Equippers making a recent aggravation and making allegedly false complaints against a student on City Campus. However the rabbit hole doesn’t stop there; back in 2020, there occurred an incident where one of the pastors based in the Taupo district of the church, was accused of “indecent assault”. It begs to question, who are our organizations putting in these positions of power?

Regarding their stance on conversion therapy, Equippers Church as a whole represented themselves in a statement submission against the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill, stating quote on quote in their submission, “the bill limits the freedoms of parents and whānau to counsel their children.” In all regards, the opposition to the Conversion Practises Prohibition Legislation Bill directed by the Equippers Church representatives is just embedded in a form of conservative dogma disguised as faith; a push towards harm against queer and trans youth via method of “religious concern”. In their supposed argument against the bill, they also stated in their claim that “if someone wants prayer or counseling to change their sexual orientation, gender, or anything else going on in their life, they should be allowed to seek, and receive it.” Their whole argument against the bill is rather seeped in rather harmful rhetoric, pushing towards bringing back a harmful and rather dangerous method of trying to erase queer identities.

On the same note, the Equippers Church also released a submission in regards to the Abortion Legislation Bill; in their submission this was their statement regarding their stances on abortion - “We love both women and unborn children. And we want our law to reflect that.” They have made it evidently clear on their websites from various departments across New Zealand and internationally, that they firmly believe in “the union between a man and a woman”.

We demand that AUT:

• Formally acknowledges and apologizes for having affiliated with a religious organization whose foundations are bestowed through hateful and oppressive religious dogma
• Remove Equippers Church from their premises, and 
• Completely eradicate their lease to use their spaces on AUT grounds.

Please help us stop this organization from being affiliated with AUT; our university does not stand with the values of this organization and it does more harm than good to our communities that belong in our organizations.