How Many New Zealanders Actually Marry Within The ‘Sight’ Of God.

From the way the ‘religious’ M.P’s in the Nz parliament were going on I expected the percentage of new Zealanders getting married in churches must still be huge, so as to warrant their attacks against marriage equality. I presumed, as I think many did, that NZ was still very much a ‘religious’ country and the various ‘hate religions’ they are members of were fighting it as the majority of New Zealanders still believed in religion and in having to do what the Church officials tell them. Tim MacIndoe has been hitting the heights of intolerance in the house towards marriage equality, ignoring the fact his own Church, the Anglicans, has taken no official stance on marriage equality either for or against. From his speeches I had assumed he had a hot line to God and knew his mind. But it seems his loathing of marriage equality is not based in his religion, but his own intolerance.
But the statistic quoted in the above clip that only 32% of New Zealanders get married in a Church gave me pause. This not only means that 68% of New Zealanders do not marry religiously, but less than a third actually have religious ceremonies at all. From the way the religious M.P’s have been going on about how marriage equality is an attack against marriage and religions I was sure the majority of New Zealanders must still be religious and seriously believed this would affect their religion. But the reality seems that in the 21st century, New Zealanders have already decided for themselves to take God and religion out of their marriages and relationships.

But Tim MacIndoe is the ‘speaker’ I keep returning too. His indignation at being called a ‘bigot’ and ‘homophobic’ makes his pity party even more pathethic. When he has no argument except ‘change is bad’, why should we see his vitriol as anything else except bigotry and homphobia. His Anglican church has not spoken out against it, so it is his choice to be so anti the legislation.
His ‘fear’ for religions amuses me greatly, especially for the Roman Catholic Church. And how he is protecting ‘faith’.

To say he is basing his vote on ‘faith’, and we should respect that. But if M.P’s want to use their religion as a basis for laws and how NZ laws should be written, based on ‘faith’, we are on a slippery slope to anarchy. Whose religion or ‘faith’ should we respect? If an Anglican follows ALL the rules in the Old Testament and thinks NZ laws should be based on those, based On Timmy’s notion of respecting faith, we must respect this. What happens when extreme Islamists want female genital mutilation made law as it is a part of their ‘faith’? If we start accepting laws and matters of law are decided by faith, we are royally screwed, and that is why religion is kept seperate from matters of law.

No gay hating celebrants will be forced to marry gay people. And why on earth do they figure gay people would want to be married by a gay hater? I find much of the argument on marriage equality worthless. But the lies and misconsturcted proof invented by the anti-marriage-equality-brigade is too ridiculous to not be challenged. Gay marriage will affect ‘straight’ marriage not a jot. The arguments and lies being put forward by the religious right, which is basically hate speech, does affect young gay people who hear it. It has beeen proven to drive them to suicide. Perhaps M.P’s such as Timmy macIndoe can remember that when they started complaining about how hard it is for him to push an agenda that their Church does not support, nor any real thinking and feeling Christian.