Connell Brian: Civil Union Bill — Second Reading 
Connell Brian: Civil Union Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:622;Page:17402] 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 I have railed against this legislation because it is fundamentally dishonest. It is predicated on a litany of “mistruths”. Despite all the rhetoric to the contrary this bill is about homosexual marriage. I could respect the proponents of this legislation if they at least accepted that fundamental fact and came clean. But how they rail against the conservative element in our society when we dare to say that that is the true agenda! The dishonesty of this legislation is that it is only because of the conservative vote that the Government has not gone the whole hog and asked for gay marriage. 
Let us look at the evidence. Tim Barnett when he was interviewed by the gay magazine  
Express 
 said that we will not have a queer-friendly Government forever so we need to capitalise on it before it is too late and that we have unfinished business. Asked what that unfinished business was he said gay marriage. In the same article the Prime Minister is reported as saying when asked about gay marriage that she had encouraged Tim Barnett to take up the cudgels. 
The argument that homosexuals are denied access to their partners who are in hospital etc. is just another of the “mistruths” that have been fanned by the homosexual community. I asked hospital officials whether that was the case and they said it absolutely was not. 
Mr Barnett tried to ply his trade in the UK political system and he was soundly rejected. I do not want New Zealand to be his guinea pig. For all the talk about gay relationships and their sustainability the fact is they are notoriously volatile—and they want us to accept those relationships as mainstream! Despite all the talk I have no antipathy towards homosexuals of either sex. [ 
Interruption 
] Members might laugh but what homosexuals are looking for is not understanding. This is the hard sell of the homosexual community. This is a recruitment drive. They are not looking for understanding at all. 
We should not even be debating this bill because we do not have a mandate. Despite what has been said the people who went to the select committee in their thousands said they did not want this measure. The people who have responded to television surveys and talkback radio in their thousands have said: “We don’t want this.” That this bill has been rushed through rammed through this Parliament is itself an enormous travesty. It is nothing more than a handful of influential people being engaged in an unabated attempt to re-engineer society in their own likeness. I repeat that we have no mandate to pass this legislation. On that basis alone we should reject it. 
I also have to ask where the mainstream churches have been on this issue. They have been spectacularly quiet. Where is the leadership that people like John Kennedy the editor of the  
Tablet 
 in the 1970s and 1980s showed? He would have galvanised the conservative vote in this country. He would have turned this into an election issue and what is more he would have won. The fact that he could have done that and that all the PC-led churches of modern society of today cannot do that is an absolute indictment on them.