WELLINGTON, New Zealand — With barely a month to go before New Zealand formerly recognizes same-sex marriage, opponents are pointing to a new poll that suggests the island is far from agreeing with their government’s decision to press ahead with same-sex marriage. The poll, released March 7 and sponsored by the New Zealand Herald, shows that opposition to same-sex marriage has grown to 48 percent, a 7.5 percent increase since last June, while the share of supporters has slipped 4 percent but still remains statistically ahead.
“Opinion polls have shown that an increasing majority of the public do not support this change, and politicians are asserting their opinions over the will of the people in supporting this bill,” read a press release from the religiously-backed, anti-gay marriage organization New Zealanders for Marriage.
But supporters of the bill recognize that a sense of inevitability has hurt their cause as well. “Religious groups have really ramped [up] their activism. I received a brochure the other day which was very sophisticated propaganda. The way they went about it, the wording, the imagery, was quite strong,” reported Aucklander Taryn Kerr, 25, who was motivated to speak out by what she sees as a troubling level of complacency about the bills’ foregone conclusion. “”We have burning red faces with hurt and anger because Sasha, my partner, is training her butt off to be a doctor. There’s a certain irony in my partner training to save lives and yet those people won’t give her a chance to live her life the way she wants to.”
Family First lobby group founder Bob McCoskrie, who opposes same-sex marriage, disagrees. “”We get past the slogans of equality and discrimination and start asking the bigger questions such as ‘do we need to change the long-held definition of marriage or can we provide legal rights through the Civil Union Act?’.”
Many religious organizations in New Zealand complain that the bill does not make enough of an accommodation for religious entities who wish to defy the law on moral grounds.
The bill, which was sponsored by Labor MP Louisa Wall and is still expected to become law, would make New Zealand the twelfth nation to allow same-sex marriage.
We were saddened to see the supporters of The Marriage Act Amendment Bill on TV1 this morning express their scorn for the institute of marriage as it is and always has been since its establishment as a sacred vow of commitment. Marriage is and always will be by its very definition a union between and man and a woman. W
It was sad to see the panellists who were against the Bill being shouted down by the supporters so that viewers were unable to hear them express their views. Susan Woods did them a great disservice by not insisting they got a chance to be heard.
Quoting some study and irrelevant statistics from an obscure English university the “elite” of the media came to the conclusion that the majority of New Zealanders wish for a change and that anyone who does not is on the “fringe” of society. We are insulted by that label. To claim, as one of the women did, that she was a Catholic and respected the Catholic Church is a nonsense and another insult to those who do.
If the proponents of the bill are so sure of its popularity, why has there not been a binding referendum on the subject.
We also learned this morning that the terms “husband and wife” will be removed from 16 pieces of legislation if the Bill is passed. So much for the assurances that the Marriage Amendment Bill will not have any effect on those who are in, or will be in the future, in the normal relationship which is marriage between a man and a woman.
What a sad day it will be if this bill passes. They really should work on making civil unions better instead of trying to get in on Marriage, which is, from it’s start long before religion, a discriminatory union that can only be applied to 1 male and 1 female who want to spend their lives together.
The majority of the local MP’s voted against it also, as seen in the map here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8454794/Marriage-equality-bill-How-MPs-voted
Too stinking late, it’s going to happen!That’s what you get when you tell people that it’s ok to be gay!