Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Gaying Out, in reply to Isabel Hitchings,
What I’d like to do is get rid of the situation we have currently where an ordained minister automatically becomes a marriage celebrant, which is a CIVIL function, not a religious one. Then as people became ministers, they could decide whether they wanted to perform a civil function, which they would have to perform in accordance with the law. If they found it unconscionable to marry same-sex couples, they wouldn’t become celebrants.
I quite like this – it neither sanctions discrimination nor requires anyone to act outside of their conscience/beliefs
+1.
I don't like the idea of the state forcing someone to perform their religious ceremony when they don't want to.
I was a bit dismissive of the Methodists earlier. They did think about this:
Conducting Civil Unions in Church
Germane to the Civil Union debate in parliament last year was the argument that the Civil Union Bill does not establish gay/lesbian marriage. Marriage continues to be a legal provision open only to heterosexual couples.
A secondary aspect that is easily overlooked, is that the legislation is for Civil Union. Parliament has not assumed to legislate for the Church. The various Christian groups retain their freedom to establish their own theological positions.
However, should it be possible for representatives of the Church on church premises to conduct such ceremonies? The idea that representative people such as presbyters can lay aside such a mantle at will and conduct ceremonies as private individuals is hardly consonant with our theology and practice of ordination. The dilemma becomes even more acute if such ceremonies are conducted on church premises.
Could it be argued that to conduct such civil ceremonies on church premises, presided over by a representative person of the Church, changes the ceremony from being "civil" into a "religious" act? Does it not also run the risk of making the "union" appear to be "marriage"?
A useful parallel may be seen in the forthcoming marriage of Prince Charles. The marriage is to be a civil one. This means it must be held on civil (not Church) premises and presided over by a representative of the State (local registrar) and not of the Church. If Church involvement at this point would inevitably make the marriage lose any claim to be a "civil" ceremony, should we not apply the same logic in New Zealand with Civil Unions?
However, just as the archbishop of Canterbury will subsequently bless Prince Charles' marriage at the chapel in Windsor castle to demonstrate the Church's acceptance of the validity of state-conducted marriage and to show pastoral care and support for those who have been so married, could it not therefore be argued:
• That the Church should not conduct Civil Unions, either by allowing its premises to be so used or allowing its authorised representatives (presbyters/deacons/lay preachers/minita a iwi) to conduct such ceremonies.
• That the Church allow appropriate blessing services on church premises to be conducted by any authorised worship leader.
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Muse: TV Review: Good Gods Almighty!, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
Oh, come on, though. “It’s too hard not to be racist so we’ll just tell stories about white people”? Like there’s no-one who could dare Maori or Pasifika mythology, let alone stuff from further afield? Not good enough.
You could be not the least bit racist and still be seen to have co-opted or mocked Maori and Pasifika mythology. You can pretty much do what you like with the Norse gods.
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Hard News: Gaying Out, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Though I’ve to to admit I find it bizarre that, even in a country with a de facto state religion, the British Government can regulate the use of Bible readings and hymns.
The limits on how and where you can get married in Britain are just bloody silly.
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Hard News: Gaying Out, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Meanwhile, if Key and Goff aren’t embarrased enough by being shown up by Ted-fucking-Olson here’s an outbreak of civilization from the British Tory-LibDem coalition:
The NZ civil union legislation did this from day one -- leaving it up to individual churches to decide whether they wanted to conduct the ceremonies. So that distinction was never there in our law.
The Catholic church swung the ban hammer immediately, the Methodists hummed-and-hahhed before deciding against it and the Anglicans seemed to leave it up to individual clergy for a while, but then disallowed clergy from performing civil union ceremonies in their official roles last year.
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Hard News February 1998:
Jenny certainly won a lot of admiration for her attendance and her wise words at the Hero Parade [http://nz.com/NZ/Queer/HERO/] last weekend. It really does feel like things are changing for the better when the PM turns up and has a good time in the rain. She told a friend of mine that she could hardly do otherwise, given that she'd surrounded herself with quite a few gay staff.
Let's not forget also that Helen Clark, Sandra Lee, Judith Tiazrd, Joe Hawke and Clem Simich turned up to join the fun. Clem Simich! On ya, Clem!
I'm given by several sources to understand that the Ship regards Mills and his council cronies as a bunch of morons. Phil Raffils even wrote her a letter begging her not cave into the forces of darkness and revealed himself to be even more stupid than anyone had previously suspected.
On that score, it seems we're suddenly encountering a whole new class of victims - the bigots. According to Brian Edwards and others, people who have "reservations" about "gay culture" and the "gay lifestyle" shouldn't be called names. The poor things. Edwards, who is a nice man and a good broadcaster, suffers from the classic baby-boomer media-man affliction of believing the world revolves around him. It's not about you, Brian.
Look, Les Mills and David Hay didn't have "reservations" about Hero - it was nothing so passive as that. What they did was deliberately stack a council committee meeting in order to reverse the advice of the council's own officials to provide the basic services they'd extend to any other gathering of this size. Some victims.
And for so long as Phil Raffils, the principal of Avondale College, tells gay teenagers that they are sick and should be "cured" I don't think any insult is too harsh. Remember when the Herald under Peter Scherer wouldn't report on Hero? Remember when he wouldn't allow the words "gay" or "lesbian" in his newspaper? It's not that long ago.
One day, quite soon I hope, we'll be saying "remember when the morons on the council wouldn't get behind Hero?". I know which side I want to be on. So ... who's going to get Bill Ralston to stand for the mayoralty? G'bye!
Who wrote that last part? Clearly, not every idea I had was a good one.
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Hard News: Gaying Out, in reply to Rich Lock,
Srsly? Wow….
Did they make coded references to ‘women in sensible shoes’?
I think they just tried to avoid mentioning lesbians at all.
But now you are indulging my procrastination. Hero report from Hard News, Feb 1996:
Well, another year, another Hero. The Ponsonby Road parade made page three of the Herald this year, along with a large photograph. It seems a long time since the paper's appalling editor Peter Scherer refused to send a reporter to the Hero Party, even though it took place less than a mile from his offices.
Actually, the Herald's Harold Angel column has been hitting exciting new peaks lately. Here, verbatim and in full, is one of the scintillating items from Wednesday's paper: "An Auckland firefighter attending a molten glass spill at a Penrose factory last week was Senior Station Officer Glass." Oh! The wit!
Anyway, suffering from the heterosexual disease of dog-tiredness from coping with kids, we didn't make it across the gully to see the Hero parade itself, but there was an assembly point just near our house, which was almost as good. For hours, our quiet Grey Lynn streets were thronged with twinkle-toed Priscilla clones and topless lesbians painted red from head to toe. Most excellent. We took the boys out to have a look, but they were more interested in the big trucks than the costumery. I fear, dear listener, that they may already be on the path to heterosexuality.
The participants trailed back to the neighbourhood after the parade and before the party and some lesbians began excitedly disrobing outside our window. They were very nice lesbians, but their blood sugar seemed a bit low, so we gave them some biscuits and chocolate bars and sent them on their way with our best wishes.
Lolz. I cannot even remember that, but it must have happened because Russell Brown said so.
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Hard News: Gaying Out, in reply to Michael Stevens,
From your post, Michael:
Then there is all the talk of a new Auckland "Mardi Gras", spilling from, the lips of Auckland Central National MP Nikki Kaye. She's a nice woman, what I've seen of her I like. She's on the more liberal end of the Nationals too, but I don't see any real support or understanding of gay issues from her, even though there are a lot of us in her electorate.
Her first comments about a Mardi Gras were about how much money it could bring into the city - then after dissenting voices arose she hastily followed up by vague murmuring about "community". Hero, when it worked, had deep roots into all sorts of areas in gay Auckland, it had community buy-in on a big scale. As it weakened it came to rely more and more on corporate sponsorship, on being more business-like and less of a community event, and it failed, got boring, and imploded.
People tend to forget that Hero didn't begin as an excuse to camp it up in the public roadway. It was an Aids awareness event staged by the NZ Aids Foundation.
I recall interviewing Rex Halliday about it before the 1992 party and almost being in tears as he talked about loss and grief.
We clubbed in on the day of the party at Princes Wharf and bought a penniless gay friend of ours a ticket. He was so excited at being surrounded by other gay people. This was a time when the New Zealand Herald refused to use the word "lesbian" and essentially blanked Hero itself, even though it was drawing 3000 people to the waterfront. It's hard to believe now.
And then at the party, when Hattie St John did 'Wind Beneath My Wings' from up in the rafters, I actually did cry. Sometimes, cheese is what you need.
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Just as an aside, I often think that Grant Robertson should make more of the fact that he is an out gay MP who will take you down in any contest requiring knowledge of Otago rugby and cricket.
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Hard News: Gaying Out, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,
The Labour Party might change the Marriage Act, and probably would if they form the next Government. I think that in the end, the amount of political capital the Labour party expended on the CU issue was not that much at all;
I think it did create an opportunity for McCully to go cultivating the social conservatives -- the book on what went on there still needs writing -- and that looked to be creating a whole mess of political danger for a while. Maxim and the evangelical churches put huge resources into trying to influence voters in the 2005 election.
But no, it certainly wasn't what led the electorate to eventually reject Labour.
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Hard News: Gaying Out, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Yes it was, but was it any less weird and spineless than Goff’s – to put it bluntly, how tolerant should we be of Goff dog-whistling marriage equality to GLBT audiences when the cameras are around?
I think it was objectively way weirder: "I know the answer but I'm not going to tell you"? Huh?