MEDIA RELEASE

3 April 2000

Graham Capill
Party Leader

NEW BILL UNDERMINES MARRIAGE AND PUTS CHILDREN AT RISK

Party Leader Graham Capill has described the Government’s decision to include homosexual and de facto couples in an amendment to the Matrimonial Property Act as “a sad day for the New Zealand family”.

Mr Capill said, “The institution of marriage has been sacrosanct for centuries. This government is proposing to undermine family life by effectively rewriting the definition of marriage, and without even waiting for the findings of the Justice Department’s Discussion Paper. It is dictatorial and extremely ill-advised.

“That children will again be the victims of yet more turbulent relationships is obvious to any objective person. Once the State recognises same sex couples in this way, no logic will prevent homosexuals adopting children. To allow consenting adults to choose perverted practices is one thing, but to have non-consenting children mixed up in such practices is quite another.”

Sinister forces have been at work for a very long time to destroy the family. The Gay Liberation Front Manifesto of 1979 stated blatantly, ‘We, along with the women’s movement, must fight for something more than reform. We must aim at the abolition of the family so that the sexist, male supremacist system can no longer be nurtured there. The oppression of gay people starts in the most basic unit of society, the family, consisting of the man in charge, a slave as his wife, and their children on whom they force themselves as the ideal models. …. The end of the sexist culture and of the family will benefit all women and gay people.’

“Even some homosexual couples and de facto couples themselves do not want marriage; that is precisely why they have opted for a different kind of relationship. That they should be automatically included in the matrimonial property regime may be administratively tidy, but conceptually muddies the water.

“Marriage has reached a low ebb, with fewer and fewer couples being committed to each other for life. To devalue it further by giving some of its privileges to other types of relationships, will remove yet another reason to get married and stay married.

“The Leader of Opposition cannot claim the high moral ground here. She too pandered to the homosexual community by attending the “Hero” parade and by introducing this debate. God will not bless any leader who sets about undermining the union of a man to a woman; a union God set down, blessed and declared that no one should put asunder.”

Christian Heritage believes the government should be strengthening marriage by creating more incentives to get married and stay married. It was to these ends that we campaigned for a Home Carers’ Allowance and income splitting for married couples. Children would then benefit from greater input from both a mother and a father (not two males or two females), as well as reap the benefits of a stable home; something which de facto couples have never been able to offer.

“The Christian Heritage Party will do all it can to oppose these changes. In the meantime we urge the government to delay any decisions and examine the findings of the Discussion Paper with an open mind,” Mr Capill concluded.

ENDS

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