First, the churches are not required to marry anyone and never have been. Churches have in the past been able to restrict marriages to church members only – and also not marry a church member to a person outside the church. They have never been required to marry divorced church members – some churches do not marry divorced people. Why would there be an issue with them marrying a same sex couple, even if they were church members. They have always been able to decide who they give church marriages to.

There are going to be some interesting consequential arguments once the bill passes into law.

Whether churches will be forced to perform marriages for gay couples, that could be interesting issue for Catholics for example.

Gay adoption – it is hard to argue for the rights for gays to marry and not support the right for them to adopt.

Will incestual marriages between gays be illegal? If so why? Surely the principal purpose of banning such relationships really isn’t an issue for gay couples.

Most of her submission is just drivel and the small number of her arguments that actually manage to make some sort of logical or rational sense contradict her viewpoint.

@redbaiter – you obviously dislike and are opposed to those who you call liberals. (You also mistakenly confuse liberal with the left side of the political spectrum when it actually doesn’t take sides.)

The word liberal stems from the Latin ‘liber’ which meant both book and freedom. It is also the root of the word library and the word liberty. Hence reading or gaining knowledge can set you on the path to freedom.So the word liberal literally means worthy of a free man, free from restraint, free in speech and action, free from prejudice and bigotry, open minded and open to new ideas or proposals of reform.

Antonyms or opposites of liberal include uneducated, unintellectual, closed of heart, selfish, bigoted, racist, homophobic, close minded and against freedom of speech and religious expression. As we live in a free country, it would actually be anti New Zealand to be against a liberal.

There is even a word used to describe the actions of a person like yourself who is anti liberal. It is liberticide, or the destruction of civil liberties.

It would seem ‘redbaiter’ is typical of those who misuse the word liberal, purposely conditioning people to misunderstand the concept of the word. At the same time, we are slowly losing our liberties, libraries and our sense of freedom.

I have a long term relationship with a woman lasting for 30 years in that time we both have had partners at present we dont
I do not conform to your view of morality or tradition Many others in the world are the same.
when you talk of the destruction of society you look back with rose tinted glasses to a time that never existed and insult many of us that are here now. Many are having children and usefully raising them without the sanction of marriage. Allowing gays that sanctity can only strengthen marriage not destroy it. Gays are people with the same wants and needs as you the only difference is in their sexual preference they feel eros for the same sex not the opposite.

The church has the right to dictate morality to its members . It does not have a right to dictate to the majority of us who do not accept the authority of the church.

In most cases, same sex couples are more interested in the status of the partner as a parent of the children of the other. Marriage is more likely to lead to guardian status for the partner if the birth parent was to die for example etc.

Is it underhand and sinister to thwart your attempt to make same sex marriage appear an issue directly related to adoption?

Many counries allowed same sex couple adoption before moving to same sex marriages. For example the UK did this years ago and is only now moving to same sex marriages.

SPC this is a finess on the adoption issue and like I say, if gays want to talk about adoption, or step-parenting, why let’s have an adoption or step-parenting debate, and let’s not obfuscate this debate with the issue of marriage, which is completely and utterly different, unless of course you want to obfuscate the issue, in the minds of the silly old public, so they don’t know what they’re signing up for?

Do you or Kev want to do that?

It appears you do.

Isn’t that underhand and sinister?

Yes, it is. Why not come out the closet and confess your real motives?

So when you say the only area where there is not equality is adoption you are wrong. You keep saying it and keep ignoring the point about step-parent status.

Is it? Well last I heard, the partner of a divorced woman doesn’t become the legally recognised father of her children. Or vice versa. So apparently SPC, there is equal status under the law.

And BTW, I wasn’t particularly talking about that. The clue was in the word I used: adoption.

The point was, sigh, not that I wish to debate adoption but that it’s the only possible thing gays can point to in the discwimination arena that remotely resembles anything like it. And yet, and yet, and yet, gays like Kevin talk of nothing else but the tewwible and howwible discwimination that is giving rise to this gwasswoots upswelling of humanity in the name of dealing with “discwimination.”

But they can’t point to anything, nothing, nada, zip, which remotely resembles any actual discwimination, at all, in any way. And neither could you, just now, either, could you. No, you couldn’t. Apart from adoption. So why doesn’t Kev put up a gay adoption bill and let’s have a debate about that, and leave the marriage issue alone, because the discwimination argument is a red herring and always was a red herring.

Really? Well how do you come to be so prescient Kev? How do you come not only to know what people think, but why they think it?

Is this because you hallucinate in your barking, braying lunacy that anyone who’s against the bill weally hates gays and that’s the only reason why they don’t like it?

I realise I’m making all sorts of assumptions about your views Kev but this is because I’ve watched you and Wall et al make similar assumptions about those submitters opposed to the bill, so I’m assuming you’re comfortable with that since you instigated the tactic in the first place.

However on the possibility you want to have a real debate, why don’t you explain to us how not being allowed to get married is “discwimination?” I mean you and Wall claim that all the time, don’t you. Yet you and other gays get all the rights under civil union, don’t you. Apart from adoption. So if you want to have an adoption debate, why not do a bill on that and let’s discuss that. But that’s the only right gays don’t currently have, right? So don’t you think it’s a rather scurrilous tactic that you and Wall at al pretend it’s about something it’s not. Or is that because you “don’t see a better way of conducting the process?”

Yes, and the same point applies to the french guy you keep quoting. You somehow seem to think that a guy at such a rally is objective and representative.

Today you can tell when they’re lying when their keybord is moving.

I find it ironic that so many KB warriors who identify supposedly with the right are in bed with Greens and the rainbow faction of Labour.

Maybe that should be KY warriors.