CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE CIVIL UNION AND RELATIONSHIPS BILL
http://www.civil-unions.org
contact@civil-unions.org

PRESS RELEASE
CIVIL UNION BILL VOTE
9 December 2004

''The passing of the Civil Union Bill today by a parliamentary majority (65-55) is a hollow victory for the tiny minority of homosexuals and lesbians who want to have their same-sex relationships recognised in law,'' says Garnet Milne, spokesperson for the Campaign. "They have been conned by the rhetoric of homosexuals Labour MP Tim Barnett and Cabinet Minister Hon. Chris Carter and a coterie of their lesbian and homosexual activist supporters, who along with their ring leader the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, have embarked on an exercise in offensive social engineering," he said.

"These activists have sought to foist onto the majority of New Zealanders who value and uphold the sanctity of marriage and wholesome family life, the morally repugnant view they hold, that is ideologically driven, that the relationship between a married (heterosexual) couple is no different in nature and in principle, from that between same-sex couples. Clark and her cosy coterie conspire to demean, degrade and infect traditional marriage by stealth (back-door politics). Marriage stands as a perpetual rebuke to the casual, promiscuous, and disordered sexual relationships she seeks to give elevated social acceptance to. She insists on equality under the law for all relationships regardless of the sexual partners or different nature of the commitments. This is an insult to those in long-term committed marriages. Rights should involve responsibilities and there is no greater responsibility than for a man to make a lifelong commitment before witnesses to enter into a marriage with a woman and together seek to bring up any children that may be the product of such a loving union" he said.

"The Civil Union Bill confers no rights on same-sex couples who enter a civil union. These rights can only be conferred on them if the Relationship Bill is passed and all the signs point to this Bill being trashed as it is a legal quagmire that is unresolveable. The Civil Union Bill creates a claimed new category of legal relationship that allows same-sex couples to gain social acceptance and yet it denies them the very thing that most want – the ability to have access to the same marriage contract that is open only to opposite-sex couples under current law. Ironically, in the attempt to be non-discriminatory, a new form of discrimination against homosexual and lesbian persons has been issued in by this Bill, that will inevitably lead to challenges by some same-sex couples to the Marriage Act itself, by means of complaints to the Human Rights Tribunal. The Civil Union Bill blocks same-sex couples from upgrading (transferring) into a marriage which is an option only open to heterosexual couples in civil unions.

A civil union for a same-sex couple mimics marriage in almost every feature but can never be one, or be upgraded to one in name, unless the Marriage Act is changed to include both same-sex and opposite sex partners. Even with such a change, same-sex partnerships registered as "civil unions" can never be true marriages because a marriage by a universal understanding of the term, as well as thousands of years of cultural and religious tradition must, involve only one man and one woman.

Garnet Milne, Spokesperson for Campaign Against Civil Union Bill

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