21 February 2005

Reformation Testimony Garnet Milne reformationtestimony.org.nz

United Future Throw Supporters To Wolves

Only ACT have opposed the bill which established hate speech law in Parliament last week.

Gradualism is the pragmatic approach to politics whereby the activist seeks to change the world to his view of it slowly over time. The gradualist politician realises that he cannot get everything his own way in one term in office, or by bringing one bill to parliament, so he attacks the status quo to effect only incremental changes until the job is done. This also has the consequence of desensitising the proletariat to evil. A case in point was the debate over homosexual law reform in the 80s. Our society went from a majority view that homosexuality should not be legalised to a situation within a year after the decriminalising of homosexuality where the majority were quite happy with the change in the law.

However, the pro-homosexual radicals were cunning. They did not push homosexual marriage at the same time as they sought decriminalisation, though they would have liked to. Once society had been softened up, Tim Barnett and the rest of the Labour government decided that homosexual marriage could not be attained even ten years after the decriminalising of homosexuality so they settled for “civil unions”. Even though a civil union is homosexual marriage by another name, the immoral leadership of our nation realised that Belgium and Holland, began with “civil unions”, but were soon able to successfully transform those unions into marriage once reserved for heterosexuals.

Many New Zealanders, who do not subscribe to a biblical world view, are quite oblivious to what is happening and couldn’t care less whether homosexuals marry or not. The politicians know this and realise that if they take a gradualist approach they can get the entire legal framework into place to fully legitimise their sin and the sin of others.

This is not an isolated process; gradualism is really systemic in our political system. It came to light again just last week in parliament in a manner that exposes the complete cynicism of our present rulers. It has to do with hate speech law included in the “Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Amendment Bill”.

To give some context, a parliamentary select committee last year called for submissions on hate-speech law. The committee has not come up with any conclusions to date and the public can only assume that parliament has not yet made any decisions on the rights or wrongs of anti-vilification laws.

But lo and behold last week the government, with the collusion of all parties other than ACT, passed a piece of legislation which included anti-vilification law. The Amendment Bill, which contained some good things like harsher penalties for child porn offenders, also contained sections 3A and 3B which empowers the film censor to criminalise those who would supply to young people videos or other media which could, according to the censor, be “injurious to the public good” or “highly offensive to the public in general”.

Any video would be considered “injurious” if it is considered to be “dehumanising” or “demeaning”. New Zealand law already considers it a human right to be homosexual even though they commit lewd acts on one another. Thus, it will be easy for the censor to pursue those of us who are seeking to keep back the tsunami of evil flooding the landscape. The censor is aided and abetted by the resources of the government which appointed him.

The film censor and his lackeys would certainly see any Christian criticism of homosexuality as worthy of punishment under this new law. We know this because the censor previously tried to punish those who showed two “living Word” videos criticising homosexuality under then existing law. After some excellent work done by SPSC and others the Court of Appeal rejected the censor’s conclusions, because the law as it then stood was intended to prevent videos showing demeaning sex to minors. The law was not intended to prevent pastors or parents warning our youth about the evils of homosexuality.

This has all altered now in last week’s law change, enabling these homosexuals and homosexual sympathisers, who have been made the guardians of New Zealand morality, to now persecute Christians who want to warn their youth about the wickedness of sodomy and all its associated evils.

One question that arises from this whole contrivance is: “Where was United Future in all of this?” Apparently UF would not even discuss the amendments with Stephen Franks of ACT. Franks comments:

“Why United Future MPs should want the censor to have the power to suppress anti-homosexual argument and teaching is utterly mysterious. I can only surmise that they think they must pay this price to refute claims that they are a religious party. We did not hear roosters crowing around Parliament as another Peter tried to deny association with Christians, but only, perhaps, because, Mr Dunne did not appear in Parliament during the debate”.

We have to agree with Franks’ assessment. It is highly disturbing to see a party which claims to be peopled by Christians throwing their fellow believers out to the wolves who are seeking to tear every fabric of decency from our society and its institutions. Christians deserve an explanation at the very least for this incredible capitulation to the forces of evil by United Future who have postured as the last paragons of virtue left in parliament.

But this is gradualism at work. Labour knows that United Future MPs will seek to preserve their claim to be facilitators of stable government as UF position themselves for the next election. Labour also knows that now this “hate speech” or anti-vilification law has been passed into law, it will be an easy thing to extend its penal sanctions to any criticism of those who wish to live immoral lifestyles.

One of the next pieces of legislation to burst on the scene is Georgina Beyer’s gender bender bill intended to create a third gender. God has made it plain in Scripture that He makes us male and female, not male, female and transgender (Gen. 1:27). As Beyer attempts to overthrow the truth as God has established it, we hear that United Future is prepared to push this absurd bill through also.

When Christians start getting fined or thrown into gaol for stating that there are only two genders and refusing to call male homosexuals like Beyer a transgender, we must hope for their own sakes that the former United Future politicians (because they are unlikely to be re-elected in the upcoming election) will realise that they have capitulated to the designs of Satan and helped strip any remaining threads of Christian influence from the decaying corpse of public virtue.

If Christians had mistakenly believed that United Future represented a Trojan horse in the secular city, they will soon have to acknowledge that a pagan Helen and all she stands for is still the beneficiary, as she was in ancient Troy. A Labour MP has told me that he is against hate-speech law, and yet he voted for this legislation.

This is the calibre of people all the parties with the exception of ACT have conspired with to lay the groundwork of a future persecution of the people of God. Time will tell whether this is too extravagant a claim.

ENDS

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