Tag Archives: Marriage

Getting to know National one marriage at a time

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19

I can’t work out if it’s a getting-to-know-your-new-Government strategy or a look-we’re-pro-family strategy, but I’m seeing an awful lot of National Party wives and kids right now. This is not an exhaustive list but:

  • John Key + wife:  to the extent that last weekend the media coverage was about how it makes her uncomfortable
  • Lockwood Smith + fiancée: for some reason this was covered by the SST twice a week apart
  • David Carter + family + chooks leapt out of the paper at me over the weekend.
  • Tony Ryall + wife on the telly tonight as part of a PlunketLine story

Any thoughts about the strategy?

Families: picking favourites

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11

Many of you will have already seen this beauty doing the rounds, but if you haven’t it’s worth a viewing


“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

It reminded me a little about the power we give the state by allowing it to make the rules about our relationships. But far more strongly it made me think of the way the moral right wants to pick favourites amongst our families; it wants to say those families in the video are less good than het families.

Why does a lobby that argues so strongly against state interference in families simultaneously argue that the state should get to pick which families are better than others?

The case against legalising marriage

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19

During the Civil Unions debate I kept arguing, in private settings, that we shouldn’t legalise same-sex marriage; that it was the fourth best option and we should actually be aiming to delegalise all marriage. Anjum’s post at the Hand Mirror about why the 2 year separation period is nonsensical reminded me of why we shouldn’t let the Crown be in charge of our marriages.

Marriage is a family, societal or religious bond. It belongs to the people who get married, and their family, their friends, their communities, their congregations and their God(s). Why should any of us be required to ask the Queen for permission (or Anand Satyanand, or Lockwood Smith, or John Key, or Brendan Boyle depending on your view of the constitutionality)? Isn’t it a marriage when we get married, not when we send a form to the Queen (etc etc)? Isn’t it up to us, our friends and families, our communities and churches to decide what marriage means, not 80 people in 1955?

If I ever chose to get married, I would do so in a ceremony appropriate to my culture, community and faith. We would stand before our family, friends and community and ask them to bless and care for our marriage. We would make promises of marriage to each other, and the people around us would witness and support that. Isn’t that what it takes to make a marriage?