“Same-Sex Couples and the Law”
Posted in Craigs Keystone articles
I spent the entire holiday break researching and writing a submission to the Ministry of Justice on their Discussion Document “Same-Sex Couples and the Law”. Very depressing. The biased nature of both the discussion document and the background paper was amazing: they took a “nonjudgmental” approach which automatically forced them to regard married couples, defactos and homosexual “pairs” as all being on an equal footing. Well, once you do that, the result is a foregone conclusion: there is no logical reason why homosexual or lesbian “couples” (terms which are nowhere defined) should not have the same rights and privileges as do married couples when it comes to formal recognition in law and society, claims on property and the adoption of children.
No country on earth has actually redefined “marriage” to include same-sex liaisons, in spite of what we may have heard in the media. What has happened is that a couple of governments have made provision for such pairs to register their relationship with the state, formalising it more than defactos do. The net result is the same, of course, for it means the state must listen to their every claim for inheritance, reproductive technology, and adoption rights. Such a thing would amount to a total radical and revolutionary redefinition of two foundational institutions in our society, in Western civilisation: marriage and the family. The tenor of these discussion documents puts traditional marriage on the defensive of having to justify its existence and place of privilege in law, by asking how different treatment of homosexual “couples” from marrieds can be justified. This issue WILL affect us all greatly. Please consider it.
The ministry of Justice would like feedback by 31 March 2000. Either do the questionnaire on their website; write your comments in response to their printed questionnaire attached to the Discussion Document, “Same-Sex Couples and the Law”; or simply write your comments to them. Request a copy of the discussion document mentioned above and also a “Backgrounding the Issues” document from:
Ministry of Justice
PO Box 180, Wellington
ph.: (04) 494-9700, fax: (04) 494-9701
email: reception@justice.govt.nz
Copies of these documents and the questionnaire for electronic completion are available on their website:
www.justice.govt.nz
Send your submissions to (only one copy needed):
Same-Sex Couples and the Law
Public Law Group, Ministry of Justice
PO Box 180, Wellington
fax: (04) 494-9859
email: reception@justice.govt.nz
From Keystone Magazine
January 2000 , Vol. VI No. 1
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz