Posts by Lucy Stewart
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to nzlemming,
That was pretty much my point in asking the priests the question, but they would always sling me out before I got to “So, the human race is based on incest, then?”
Oooh, oooh, I know this one: incest was totes OK back then, because Adam and Eve were created perfect and didn't have any terrible mutations to be brought out by inbreeding. Or, alternatively: there were a bunch of other people created, it's just the Bible forgets to mention them because they're not that important.
Never underestimate the capacity of literalists to bullshit creatively. Just...don't.
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
I was drummed out of bible class* at an early age (9 or 10) for asking, “But aren’t these just metaphors?” about the loaves-and-fishes stories and such I was being told.
I dunno if anyone's run into Kiwi Camp, which is a school-holidays-and-school-camps place north of Wellington, but I really hacked off a few people there on a three-day horse camp when I was twelve by asking questions like "What happens to people who live and die without meeting missionaries?". Given that they'd already hacked me off by sitting me down and telling me that women shouldn't have the vote, I felt this was fair.
(They were also ACT supporters. The party's inexplicable lack of attraction to women voters may have some explanation there...)
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Hard News: The scandal that keeps on giving, in reply to nzlemming,
Still, that’s an improvement over the usual “lefties are all pinko commie deviants, sucking on the teat of Mother Russia” stuff that often passes for right wing commentary in your part of the world.
You forgot "Satan-worshipping".
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Hard News: The scandal that keeps on giving, in reply to Hilary Stace,
A long time right-wing Telegraph journalist now questions his own ideological assumptions, and wouldn’t it be great if this started happening in NZ too.
Notice that the man still thinks everything anyone on the Left has ever proposed is utterly and thoroughly wrong, it's just that there's a vague possibility we may be right about there being a problem.
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Hard News: The scandal that keeps on giving, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
After all, I’d respectfully suggest there are a lot of current (and ex-) MPs in all parties will will neither forgive, nor forget, The Daily Telegraph for kicking off the expenses scandal that ended careers, and put four people in prison
But, as Murdoch so kindly explained, that's just because MPs aren't being paid a million pounds each like in Singapore, where there is no corruption and the media/state relationship is entirely unproblematic. If they had been getting a million pounds a year, surely none of this would be a problem!
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I’ve certainly seen little evidence that there’s some straight line causual relationship between age and homophobia; it’s a wee bit more complicated than that.
Yeah, there's a lot of space between "is against gay marriage on a survey" and "homophobic", which can be filled with some quite complex (and potentially changeable) views. And, hey, 44% for isn't exactly an overwhelming rejection in that age group. I'd be entirely willing to lay money that if you'd surveyed those same people (the +55s) when they were the +25s that you wouldn't have found nearly as much support.
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to StuartBradbury,
The significant differences are … by age. Over 55 is the only category where support drops below half*, to 44% in favour and 49% opposed.
– Doesn’t that demographic pretty accurately describe our parliamentarians? … and any vote on this issue is a ‘conscience vote’ … so isn’t the result predictable?
Well, not all parliamentarians are over 55. Quite a few aren't. And even assuming that the ones who do split precisely along those lines, figures like "60% of the country in favour" are pretty convincing to those who might be against it - if they have any intention of actually representing their constituents, that is. I honestly don't think the result would be as predictable as you assume.
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to izogi,
Without either of those two reasons, I’d personally have been happy to just live together as a de facto couple or at most join the Civil Union crowd.
Personally, I'd have gone for a civil union, but the overseas recognition was the kicker: I wanted to come to the US for my PhD and I wanted my partner with me. Marriage was the only option. Of course, New Zealand recognising same-sex marriage wouldn't extend that to overseas governments, but it's a start.
And it really does carry a social cachet that no other form of long-term partnership does. Often it's a social cachet I'm not sure I want to have, but it exists, no question.
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to BenWilson,
It’s been my solution for years. It’s not as good as it seems – you end up forking out big time for airfares, and going nowhere else for holidays.
Move to the other side of the world, and be too poor to go back very often.
(But, yeah, I hear you. We've worked out there's no point going home until we have the time for a three week trip or so, because by the time we've done both islands...we'll need another holiday when we get back. And now I think about it, your remark resembles my childhood.)
However, there’s a difference between substantive equality issues like transgender legal equality and inclusive adoption reform that means that they need to precede any moves to introduce SSM proper.
I rather think there's an excellent argument that once it becomes obvious the reality of marriage equality (which would of necessity include some adoption reform) is a beneficial-to-neutral change, things like transgender equality will become that much easier to push. And, as Craig says, it shouldn't be about picking and choosing. Human rights aren't a buffet.
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to Emma Hart,
Could we manage something where you can opt to explicitly NOT “establish kinship bonds between extended families”? Because that would be… quite useful.
Have them live on different islands. It's a good start. I imagine different countries would work even better.