Bigotry and religion an objectionable marriage

The Government is preparing to enact legislation that will provide for equality of marriage for adults regardless of sexual orientation.

The first vote was a conscience vote, but supported by Labour and National, the majority of members were for it, by a margin of two to one. This is good news. Not only does this mean that our country is joining the 12 other developed nations which have legalised same-sex marriage, but the recognition of marital rights for all is the right thing to do.

Such legislation removes discriminatory barriers which - even now, with civil unions permitted - categorise gay citizens as a minority with a lesser standing before the law. Such discrimination is inconsistent with fundamental principles of our democracy in which participation is founded on equality. As gays have stepped out of the shadows consigned by a public hostile to their "otherness", here and abroad there has emerged the recognition that such discrimination is inconsistent with the basic values protecting citizens as their right.

In New Zealand, while same-sex marriage would probably gain recognition under current interpretation of the Bill of Rights Act, older negative precedents (Quilter V Attorney-General, 1998, which invites parliamentary reconsideration of discrimination inherent in the Marriage Act) make legislative change a must.

Not everyone is in support of this amendment to the Marriage Act. Opposition is largely cloaked in religious terms. Similar opposition existed in 2005 when the concept of civil unions for gays was first put forward.

Brian Tamaki of the Destiny Church led a protest to Wellington. He was joined in parliamentary vote by the bulk of the National Party, including Gerry Brownlee (no pun intended) and John Key.

Times have changed. Key and Brownlee are among the 30 Nats who voted for this new, more egalitarian bill.

I have yet to learn of an argument in opposition, citing religion, that is not simply the justification of discrimination by cloaking of bigotry and prejudice in cover of religion.

That's true even for our local MP, Chester Borrows. Citing his role as a Presbyterian lay preacher, Chester says he would not withhold any right inherent in marriage to same-sex couples; he just doesn't want it called marriage. Chester is a lawyer and therefore he should know of the 97 statutes that treat gay couples in civil unions differently than heterosexual married couples in areas such as contracts, medical care, inheritance, property rights and even criminal law.

Yet Mr Borrows, despite his contrary statement, is trying to water down the current bill to deny those couples the rights of marriage.

Colin Craig, Conservative Party leader, claims he opposes marriage equality because it threatens the institution of marriage. That is thin gruel indeed. The threat to the institution of marriage is marriage itself, in that more than half of heterosexual unions exist without the formality of marriage and of those heterosexual couples who do marry, nearly half eventually divorce. That lesbians and gays wanting to sail on the perilous marital ship and willingly seek the responsibility of marriage with a view to stability and endurance can only support marriage as an institution. The present bill does not require any celebrant to participate if she has religious objections. And who would seek a marriage celebrant who disagrees?

The saddest piece of prejudice was contained in a local column (Chronicle, August 29) by Lyn Flett of Ingestre Street Bible Church. Flett made the outlandish claim that marriage equality would encourage "psychological trauma, STDs or a shortened lifespan". As environmentalist John Burroughs put it: "To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, to imagine your facts is another."

I have a lot of respect for religion, but when its practitioners stumble into the realm of make-believe science as scaremongering they require correction. The cure for bad religion is good religion, just as the cure for bad science is good science. If you can't respect the science used as the argument against marriage equality, you can't respect the argument itself.