20 October 2004

Gaynz.Com Misrepresents Society (Spcs)

Today GAYNZ.COM falsely accused the Society (SPCS) of issuing a press release that was "almost exclusively devoted to crying that ... gays don't deserve civil rights, and New Zealanders aren’t, in fact, liberal." The Society’s press release dated 19 October 2004 entitled "Chris Carter's Absurd Claim: Gay Civil Unions are Civil Rights", can be found at:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/PO0410/S00188.htm

Response to GAYNZ.COM
1. The Society did not state or even suggest that "gays don't deserve civil rights". The "Absurd Claim" made by Hon. Chris Carter, that the Society challenged, is identified (in summary) in the article's heading: "Gay Civil Unions ARE Civil Rights". The Society's article was devoted to showing why this claim is false. It argued that every human being deserves civil rights but that such rights do not include the right of an individual to have the state legitimise and formally recognise their same-sex partnership in law. Practising homosexuals like Carter claim that the state has unjustly denied "gays" their "civil right" by not allowing them to have their same-sex partnership recognised and affirmed in law. They claim that this is an example of unjust discrimination by the state. We refuted this absurd claim by pointing out that the claimed ‘right’ does not constitute a genuine “civil right”.

The latter include the civil rights to freedom of speech and justice and must be open to all human beings regardless of their race, skin colour etc. and any other immutable character that constitutes a person as belonging to a genuine "class of persons". Practising homosexual persons are defined by a lifestyle choice that involves having intimate sexual relations with a same-sex partner. This practice considered by many New Zealanders as a sexual serious dysfunction and/or deviancy and morally wrong, has not been shown scientifically to be based on any condition or character that practising homosexuals have been born with.

2. The Society did not argue: “New Zealanders aren’t in fact liberal”. We challenged Mr Chris Carter's public statement that "the silent MAJORITY of New Zealanders are liberal". He implied that because the MAJORITY is “liberal”, they therefore must support the Civil Union Bill he is promoting. We challenged his assertion by pointing out that 95.5% of the 6,170 written submissions received by the Justice and Electoral Committee on the Civil Union Bill were opposed to it. The majority were also opposed to its companion bill – The Relationships (Statutory References) Bill. Only 278 submissions (0.05%) were received from those supporting the Civil Union Bill.

We pointed out that many “gays” and heterosexuals in de facto relationships oppose the bills and yet they are “liberal” on other issues. We provided evidence from the 2001 NZ Census showing that of the 3,468,813 total responses analysed on the Religious Affiliation Table (www.stats.govt.nz), 58.9% of NZers identified themselves as "Christian" (and this does not include the additional 63,597 individuals who identified themselves as "Maori Christian"). We explained that the number of persons who have come forward to identify themselves as living in same-sex partnerships and/or identify as "gay" in a the most extensive and comprehensive nation-wide survey on “gay” lifestyle ever carried out, where respondents can remain anonymous, is only 2,276 (Lavender Islands Survey). Such figures combined with data available from the 2001 NZ Census indicate that less than 2% of people in NZ aged 15 years and over are "gay".

The Society has some good advice that may be helpful for GAYNZ.COM “Keep reports truthful. Building up to a shattering crescendo by telling boring porkies will make the reader lose interest after half a dozen lines or so.

For those wanting to discover more on why “gay” ‘rights’ do not constitute “civil rights” and instead constitute “special rights” see full transcript of video GayRights/Special Rights: Inside the Homosexual Agenda: http://www.christian-apologetics.org/html/Gay_rights_Special_rights.htm

ENDS

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