Franks Stephen: Civil Union Bill — Second Reading 
Franks Stephen: Civil Union Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:622;Page:17394] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 This should have been an easy decision for me to make. I believe in equality before the law. I believe that the law should uphold personal responsibility. I believe that the State has no place in the bedrooms of the nation. Yet I am not voting for the Civil Union Bill at this reading. I voted for it to go to the Justice and Electoral Committee when Parliament first debated it. So what has changed? Sadly very little. When one gets behind the slogans to work out what the words actually mean—what they actually do—there is virtually nothing there. This bill sets out a process for registering the fact that two people have exchanged agreements to join in civil union. So what does it mean to join in civil union? Nobody can tell. The whole thing is built around an important contract without the slightest indication as to what that contract is about. All the consequences of that contract are set out in the Relationships (Statutory References) Bill but we do not know what will be in that bill. No one in this House can assume what will remain of that bill. The select committee is doing a major reconstruction of it because it was so shambolically misconceived when it came into the House. Yet the two bills were designed to be read together. The Civil Union Bill does not have any practical effect without the other bill. 
How can any self-respecting legislator vote a blank cheque to Ms Clark and Ms Wilson on a family law matter? Why should they be trusted to come back to the House to do what even the proponents of this bill expect—that is provide that same-sex couples should be able to choose to have their relationships governed by the same rules that govern other childless voluntarily committed couples? I believe that should be the law. But we all ought to insist on knowing exactly what the companion bill will be even if it is only knowing that it does not discriminate further than it already proposes to do by providing for example that civilly united couples will still get the higher single benefit rate until 2007 for reasons I cannot fathom. 
We do know that the Civil Union Bill has no core. It was heavily marketed as State endorsement of or support for long-term stable committed relationships but there is nothing whatsoever in the bill about that. None of those words appear in it nor anything like them. The companion bill changes over 100 Acts to eliminate all differences for legal purposes between marriage civil union and shacking up for a couple of nights with no particular plan to end the relationship. The Relationships (Statutory References) Bill therefore makes civil union legally redundant except as a fashion statement. It even subjects unwilling de factos to a near-identical legal status to that of marriage whether or not they want it. So instead of underscoring the moral neutrality of the State the Civil Union Bill highlights that the State is using Parliament to bless a politically sponsored lifestyle choice. 
The submissions on the bills reinforced the view that very few people—and I think very few parliamentarians—had read them. I am sure that people were sincere but the tearful accounts of prejudice and insensitivity we heard had nothing to do with the law. For example much was made of hospital visiting rights. They were never a matter of law and they still are not. Neither of the bills even tries to deal with that issue. The people who submitted on that matter were victims of political theatre. 
 Since I came to Parliament I have tried to vote only for law that means what it says and says what it means. I have tried to oppose the misuse of law for slogan purposes. Still I could vote for a bill that I thought was hollow if that meaninglessness was harmless. But this bill is not harmless. There are unprincipled provisions in the Human Rights Act that mean that people who think same-sex marriage is deeply wrong could be forced to become involved in those ceremonies. A church could be forced to make its church hall available for example. The Relationships (Statutory References) Bill could easily prevent that by limiting the human rights anti-discrimination provisions but Government members have scoffed at the thought. 
I supported the Homosexual Law Reform Bill. I believed that criminal law should not be involved in such matters and I drafted one of the speeches of support for a member who voted for that bill. I believed the claims of the gay lobby—that all gays wanted was to be treated equally. Then they turned round and agitated for privilege. They gave the human rights commissars the powers to suppress peaceful opponents of homosexuality. Now many of them are advocating for anti-vilification laws—or the criminalisation of criticism as hate speech. Well I am not willing to give a blank cheque to the normalisers of same-sex relationships while they withhold freedom of association and freedom of speech in relation to sexual orientation. They want a parliamentary blessing. I want them to promise to restore that lost freedom. If this is the only chance we get to oblige them to reciprocate then we should not pass it up. 
Neither side of a contentious moral debate should be able to get its hands on the levers of the State in order to enforce its views against the other. The State should not be allowed to discriminate on such matters; it should be secular and it should ensure freedom for the tolerant coexistence of diverse religious ethical and cultural preferences. But the State should also protect—not prevent—private individuals and organisations from trying to influence each other. Tolerance means nothing if it does not include substantial freedom even to be offensive without the intervention of the police. So informal private discouragement of what people think is undesirable conduct whether it is just poor manners or whether it is what is thought to be a self-destructive lifestyle is an essential part of the peaceful self-regulation of a healthy community. 
Communities can also rely on favours to encourage desirable behaviour and the right word for those mechanisms is “discrimination”. Ordinary people can therefore exercise influence on the evolution of culture in their daily choices. They can discourage what they consider to be undesirable—encourage the way we do things around here—by means of whom they choose to associate with whom they employ and whom they do business with. That right to discriminate must be protected before we retrench behind yet another endorsement of law that can be used to attack those who do not agree with the prevailing orthodoxy. 
I urge this House to reject this bill today. It should be brought back when it is not an insult to members who want to know what they are voting on before they vote. But it should not be brought back until it cannot be turned into a legal club to beat people who dislike homosexuality and want the freedom to peacefully express that. I do believe in equality before the law. The law should uphold personal responsibility. It should enable same-sex couples to opt into the pre-formed contracts of the law. It should protect freedom of choice for all adult New Zealanders. The State should have no place in the bedrooms of the nation nor should it force anyone to pretend that he or she likes or does not care what happens in the bedrooms of the nation.