I am a hard core local proud atheist. With this failed Christian Nation attempt, we as a nation are lucky, we dodged a bullet, and we should all be grateful to all the people that recognised a Christian nation is a mistake, they stood up and spoke out to say no.

No to a nation’s freedoms removed, no to human rights taken away, and thank you to the wise recommendations by the special committee.

To those who advocated for a Christian nation, you know who you are, I

read the words of one local Christian say, ‘who are those Muslims to have the right to have a church (mosque) here’. Such bad thinking, it’s sicking. I ask for an apology to our people and others affected. I’m not joking, I call for it. Some of us have had to deal with the fear of our faiths to be removed with

persecution, I had to live with the fear of my freedom and my people’s freedom removed. It was not pleasant, it was really worrying. You would not know the pain of persecution unless the tables are flipped. Imagine the pain to all you Christians if Jews where advocating for a Cook Island Jewish Nation. No more Christianity to be practice here, by constitutional law, only Judaism, oh persecution hurts now. We will never know the full extent of pain and damage done to our people as many will stay quiet and won’t speak out about it.

I ask for those responsible to apologise and to assure us that they will not attempt this again.

It’s easy to apologise. I will be the first one, a few years back I had a run in with a Muslim group here. I spoke and behaved in ways I should not have, so to our

Muslim community, I sincerely apologise for my prejudice and disrespectful behaviour. I am sorry for not showing welcoming love as I should as a Cook Islander. I am sorry I judged your religion before getting a better understanding of it, I will welcome any people with any religion to our Nation, as our Nation is free from religious persecution.

Perhaps our people have been unprepared to new ideas as I was and that natural prejudice side of us came out. So, I say please Christians, let’s take the first steps to make things right. If Christianity is great, show it don’t force it with laws, show our Nation’s love.

I look forward to the voice and response of our Christian community. Perhaps it’s time to evolve socially with secular reasoning and consider atheism,

scepticism and humanism as an answer for our people. As many great countries and communities have seen the great benefits from moving away from religions.

Samuel Greig