Franks Stephen: Civil Union Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Franks Stephen: Civil Union Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17444] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 It is very interesting that the same side—in fact almost the same mouths—that is arguing that it is ridiculous for those from the pro-marriage side who are worried about this legislation to feel that it says something about marriage is claiming at the same time that the reason for setting up this mimicry is to get away from the religious connotations of marriage because marriage is all in the heart and all in the mind. Our select committee found—I think to the surprise of all of us—that there is next to nothing about marriage specified in the Marriage Act. We can construct some part of the State’s attitude to marriage from other law such as the law that governs the delay before dissolution and we can argue that a stable long-term commitment of loving and caring is part of marriage or of civil union from some elements of history but we cannot find anything to that effect in law. 
We are having this debate when last year 47 percent of marriages were civil services that were not conducted in a registry office and 18 percent were conducted in a registry office. In other words only 35 percent of marriages last year took place in a church. I think we could assume that a few others might have been religious ceremonies that were not held in churches. I do not know how many. We were told by marriage celebrants who gave evidence to us in Christchurch that there were not many of those. But we have to take it that the community knows that marriage is a civil ceremony as far as the State requires and that it has known that for generations. So the idea that some urgent Government priority should be establishing a new status to avoid the offence that some apparently feel at the residual religious connotation is plainly ridiculous. 
This legislation is an attempt to create a direct mimic—a direct pantomime—of marriage in order to hitch-hike on its traditions and to hitch-hike on the residual respect that there is for marriage. It is an attempt by an elite to tell those who continue to dislike homosexuality that they ought to change. When Richard Worth comes up with proposals that will confer all the legal benefits of this status and remove every one of the legal disabilities we are told that that is an attempt to wreck the bill. Well it can be wrecking the bill only if the objective were something other than the removal of discrimination. It can be wrecking the bill only in that it is wrecking an attempt to use this bill to force a particular view of lifestyle a particular morality using the levers of the State on those who simply say they do not agree. 
I do not have a concern about homosexual relationships or homosexual couples. I would not have supported the Homosexual Law Reform Bill if I had been concerned about those. But when I hear Brian Donnelly giving a very sincere speech and saying that the valuable time of this Parliament should be spent on a bill that would allow—I cannot remember his phrase exactly—legal rights to have a relationship or legal recognition of a relationship I know that that comes from a world view that has forgotten where our legal tradition started. It was only a few generations ago that New Zealanders knew they could do anything that the law did not prohibit. It was without question that one could have any relationship one liked as long as the law did not prohibit it. One did not need the State to say a relationship was legal; the State told one only when a relationship was illegal. When the Homosexual Law Reform Bill went through Parliament the State ceased to tell people when their relationships were illegal. 
We had of course the historical institution of marriage and the State had decided that it would use that institution and reinforce it by providing a registration structure. I see great advantage in registration.