Submission to the Justice and Electoral Committee concerning the
Civil Union Bill.
Summary
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
We support this Bill.
Same-sex relationships are a valid way of being human.
They are consistent with progressive Christian ethics.
The Bill gives recognition or status to same-sex relationships.
Recognition is an integral part of justice.
The Bill remedies a cultural injustice.
There is a developing concern in non-heterosexual culture with the
exploration of relationships.
h. Increasingly, gay and lesbian couples are parenting children.
i. The Bill is consistent with the parenting provisions in the Care of
children Bill.
j. Same-sex partners should be accorded the same kinship rights as
opposite-sex partners.
Galaxies
a. This submission has been discussed by a representative group of
the Galaxies membership.
b. Galaxies is a community of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and
transgendered people who meet twice monthly for worship and on
other occasions for workshops, house groups, retreats and study.
c. Many of its members live as couples.
d. Galaxies is an ecumenical organisation, with members coming
from all mainstream churches.
e. One of our objectives is to foster support of gay men, lesbians and
bi-sexuals in and beyond Wellington.
Reasons for Support
In our experience as Christians and as lesbians and gay men, same-sex
relationships are a valid way of being human. Same-sex couples are
fully capable of relationships which observe the values of mutuality,
stewardship, sharing and faithfulness which are inherent in the Gospel.
“Two of the oldest principles in Christian theology are that God
teaches humankind progressively, in stages of ‘law’-giving, and that
Christian moral teaching itself has levels or stages of disclosure.”1 In
rules-based ethics of the past, the rules have often been unexamined,
gender-biased, and inadequate to real-life relational situations. In the
twentieth century we have come to understand the broad spectrum of
sexuality and gender identity in the human condition. It is appropriate
1
Mark D. Jordan, The Ethics of Sex [Blackwell Publishing, 2002] 153)
therefore, that social legislation should now embrace this fuller
understanding.
As members of a gay and lesbian community organisation, we
welcome a remedy to the cultural injustice caused by existing
discriminatory laws for marriage. “Justice consists of redistribution
and recognition. Each aspect must be addressed insofar as injustice is
experienced, on the one hand, as economic disadvantage and
exploitation and, on the other hand, as cultural disrespect and
marginalisation….The remedy for cultural injustice is ‘some sort of
cultural or symbolic change’2 that would result in recognition of the
group in question…Gay oppression takes the form of cultural
displacement. Injustice happens less from efforts to keep gay people
‘in their place’….and more from having no place where gayness is
visible and represented as a valid way of being human.”3 “We show
what we think persons are worth by what we ultimately concede is due
to them….If we deny persons justice, we have declared them
worthless.’4
There is a developing concern in non-heterosexual culture with the
exploration of relationships. This is a quest for a legitimate societal
goal. A recent study in the United Kingdom5 notes that since at least
the early 1980s there have been new narratives of non-heterosexual
intimate relationships which focus attention on the values of everyday
life, and form the basis of new claims to full citizenship for those
hitherto on the margins, especially where relationships are concerned.
Also, increasingly, critics of the family have talked, not of replacing
the family, but instead of recognising alternative families. Lesbian and
gay families are: “neither marginal nor exceptional, but rather
represent a paradigmatic illustration of the ‘queer’ post modern
conditions of kinship that we all now inhabit”.6
The Law Commission, in its discussion document, New Issues in Legal
Parenthood (section 1.6), observes that over the past two-to-three
decades, there have been vast changes to our social structure. These
have included the number of same-sex couples with children. Families
in which the parents are of the same sex have become more visible and
their numbers have increased 100% between the last two census dates.
In 1996 this was 684 while in 2001 it was 1356. The Care of Children
Bill takes cognisance of this change in its provision for the exercise of
guardianship by a same-sex partner. The status which civil union
2
Nancy Fraser, Justice Interrruptice: Critical Reflections on the ‘Post Socialsist’
Condidition [New York: Routledge, 1997] 15
3
Marvin M. Ellison, Same Sex Marriage? A Christian Ethical Analysis [Cleveland,
The Pilgrim Press, 2004] 50
4
Caniel C. Maguire, The Moral Core of Judaism and Christianity: Reclaiming the
Revolution [Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1993] 127
5
Jeffrey Weeks et al, Same Sex Intimacies: Families of choice and Other Life
Experiments [London and New York, 2001] 15, 17
6
J Stacey, In the name of the Family: Rethinking Family Values in the Postmodern
Age [Boston, MA, Beacon Press, 1996] 15
would confer provides an appropriate institutional structure for this
role.
Same-sex partners have the same emotional relationships in terms of
love, concern, and grief as opposite-sex partners. As with opposite-sex
partners, same-sex partners have a shared history of intimate emotional
relationship which entitles them to the privileges accorded to a partner
when the other partner is ill or dies. "Faithfulness is tied to
remembrance, a recollection of a history of relationship demonstrated
through concrete experiences".7 They should therefore be accorded the
same kinship rights as opposite-sex partners.
7
Kowalewski/Say, Lesbian & Gay Community in Spirituality and Community, ed.
Clark & Stemmeler, Monument Press, 1994