The Lady Garden

Tea and Strumpets

Let Clamour Ring

4 Comments Posted by on May 11, 2012

It’s not often that your opposition tells you exactly what you should do. Even less often it turns out to be a good idea. But, and I can’t really believe I’m saying this, John Key is right.

Yesterday he was asked his opinion on marriage equality. Turns out he doesn’t have one. He’s put as much thought and sense of personal ethics into this as he did the Springbok Tour.

He said he didn’t think there was any “clamour” for gay marriage in New Zealand and it was not on the government’s agenda, NZ Newswire reports.

Got it? No clamour. If we want marriage equality, we need to make some noise about it. And given how often this issue actually makes an impression in the media in New Zealand, we need to do it NOW.

Those in favour of same-sex marriage outnumber those opposed nearly two to one. Yet you’d never guess it from the amount of noise we make. This is our chance to make ourselves heard on an issue that, apparently, our Prime Minister has no strong views about. David Shearer and the Greens are in favour. Peter Dunne wouldn’t comment.

So let’s clamour. Make some noise. Tweet. Facebook. Say you support marriage equality in New Zealand. Use the #clamour hash-tag. Write to Key. Tweet him (@johnkeypm). Go to the marriage equality website and sign up. If you’re in Wellington, Queer the Night is tonight. Go be clamoury there.

I don’t often get hectory. But this isn’t a lot to ask. If you’re in favour of marriage equality, if you think it matters, say something. How can we expect schoolyard bullies to treat us as equals when our government doesn’t?

If you have friends or co-workers or schoolmates who are on the fence or who argue against, try sending them here: if they’ve got an argument I haven’t covered, I want to hear it.

One thing Key has admitted: there are no legitimate arguments against gay marriage. Just a lazy feckless government that doesn’t give a shit. It’s up to us to change their minds. Who else is there?

human rights, NZ Politics, Society

4 responses to “Let Clamour Ring”

  1. Moz May 11, 2012 at 12:03 pm

    Lyric says: because I’m a lazy bastard.

    I’m interested in how you effectively argue with that, because I’ve frequently failed to.

    Reply
    • Emma May 11, 2012 at 12:16 pm

      Unfortunately, I usually respond to that argument with those Stories of Personal Suffering that make people cry, scorn, and a pointed reminder that if they think it’s right but can’t be arsed that doesn’t so much make them lazy as ethically bankrupt.

      It’s not a very constructive approach.

      Reply
      • Moz May 11, 2012 at 12:53 pm

        It’s tricky when I’m dealing with someone who has quite different values, so while they might be neutral or slightly supportive about queer marriage, they don’t think it’s important. Even “I’ll send you an email, you resend it to That Nice Mr Key” is likely to fall into the “I never got around to it”. Even things that directly affect them aren’t enough to kick them into action.

        I do wonder if one of the key values is “political engagement”. Which, honestly, I find it hard to promote. I deal with people who are in positions of power fairly often and even they really struggle to get things to change (albeit the green wing of the labour party is not a great place to start if you want to make change). So asking disinterested friends to make an effort is hard.

        Reply
  2. Denny May 11, 2012 at 12:53 pm

    Thanks for providing the link to the marriage equality web site. It makes it easy to make a submission. I have shared on facebook

    Reply

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