When I saw Brian Tamaki on the news last night, he looked more pompous than ever.

Pompous - not pious.

Because he was the one who instructed his so-called followers to disrupt that drag artist’s kids show and protest at the Auckland Rainbow Parade at the weekend.

From the pictures I’ve seen, both of those events looked pretty ugly. His idea. Under his instructions. And I’ve had a gutsful of this guy. And we need to be condemning him in the strongest way possible.

Because, it seems that’s all we can do. Sadly.

They were doing a particularly vigourous haka at the end of the parade. That wasn’t free speech. That was hate.

I saw one person saying on the news that Tamaki’s Man Up crew is nothing more than a gang and should be treated that way.

This person made particular mention of the gang patch legislation - saying that these guys ride around on motorbikes wearing patches, So why aren’t they included in the gang patch ban?

The organiser of the rainbow parade says there is a difference between freedom of speech and hate speech - and what we saw at the weekend was hate. And I completely agree.

The parade organiser says it was clear that they had set-out to intimidate, to bully, and get their message of misinformation across.

I agree they wanted to intimidate. And I agree they were a bunch of bullies. But I don't know about the misinformation bit, because you never get any information from these clowns (misinformation or otherwise).

And, as per usual, we had weasel words from the Prime Minister when he was asked about it yesterday.

He said he respects peoples right to free speech and he respects people's right to protest, but he said Tamaki’s puppets “went too far”.

You're damn right they went too far. Even by turning up, they went too far. What the PM should have done yesterday was condemn Brian Tamaki and his deluded followers in the strongest way possible.

He should have done what Auckland mayor Wayne Brown did. He said it was nothing short of “thuggery”. Which is a great way to describe it.

I thought Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick was a bit light on it when she said that the rainbow community needs love and support, not hateful rhetoric.

I know what she’s saying, but I want her to condemn these people too.

Because, for me, this wasn’t free speech - it was hate speech.

And remember that this kind of thing isn’t new for this Destiny lot. You’ll remember they got all excited about an event at the library in christchurch that time when there was an event with people in drag reading stories to kids.

And there’s no stopping them.

Last night Tamaki was saying that he doesn’t think they’ve gone far enough yet. And he challenged the Prime Minister to get show some fortitude and to do a Donald Trump, and declare that only two genders will be recognised in New Zealand. Male and female.

So these guys are dangerous. Not because of their mickey mouse beliefs, but because of the way they express them.

If someone doesn’t like the idea of same sex people being in relationships - they’re allowed to feel that way. If someone thinks we should go back to the way it used to be, with just boys and girls and men and women, they can think that too. Good luck to them.

But when people take it to the next level - like we saw at the weekend - that’s not ok by me.

I tell you what else isn’t ok. The fact that this outfit is out there bullying people - dishing out their hatred - and because they call themselves a church, they enjoy all the tax benefits that come with that.

A few years back, some Destiny Church charities were removed from the charities register for not filing their annual tax returns.

Before that happened, more than 70,000 people signed a petition calling for Charities Services to strip the church of its tax-exempt status.

I’ve had a look at the register today and the Destiny Church New Zealand Trust is still there. There are still some regional branches registered as a charity too. Which is a rort.

And, until the government delivers on its promise to crackdown on so-called “charities” not paying tax, we just have to accept that it is what it is.

But that doesn’t mean we have to sit back and let these people do what they want. We can’t make them pay tax. We can’t tell them to take their patches off - because they’re not a gang.

But we can stand up and tell them to pull their heads in.