Gay-marriage Select Committee: 20,000 submissions, 17,000 scrapped—182 heard—report back one month—shambolic mess

Reading the Government media statement below makes me embarrassed to be a New Zealander; it’s an absolutely disgraceful, shambolic mess; if this is New Zealand’s democracy, then it’s synonymous with fascism.

It’s time John Key started leading in a non-fascist manner; he could start by pulling the plug on this biased and completely incompetent gay-marriage select committee and call for a referendum on the issue.

First, read the Government’s media statement and I will comment below.

Media statement - Government Administration Committee (interesting points highlighted):

Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill

The Government Administration Committee met in Auckland this week to hear submissions on the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill.

The committee is required to report the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill to the House by 28 February 2013. In this period, it will need to consider carefully the issues raised by submitters, seek advice on the issues raised, discuss and decide whether or how these issues might be addressed, devise draft amendments to address the issues raised if necessary, and prepare its draft report to the House. The closing date for submissions was 26 October 2012.

The committee has received approximately 20,000 submissions, of which approximately 17,200 are form submissions. It is standard and accepted procedure for committees to not hear from those who have sent in form submissions. To date the committee has heard 182 submitters over more than 32 hours of hearings in Auckland and Wellington.

The committee has decided that it will not be able to hear from all individual submitters who wish to be heard in the time available to it. The committee is appreciative of the time and effort that submitters have put into preparing their submissions. The purpose of submissions is to inform the committee’s consideration of the bill; submissions raise issues for a committee to consider when deciding whether it might recommend to the House that it amend the legislation. The public can be assured that all submissions will be read and that the committee is well aware of the issues raised by submitters. The committee has worked hard to ensure that submitters have been able to make oral submissions on every issue that has been raised.

The committee will travel to Christchurch on 28 January 2013 to hear South Island submitters. There will also be a further hearing of evidence in Wellington on 30 January 2013. Source

Comment:

If a committee in the private sector operated in the same manner as the gay-marriage select committee is, it would have been fired long long ago. They are managing it like children in a playground, but what would you expect from a gaggle of gays, or a gaggle of homosexuals to be more precise?

For a start, to have homosexuals on a select committee for gay marriage is like having ‘big tobacco’ on a committee for tobacco reform or drug dealers on a committee for marijuana reform.

Essentially, what I can conclude from the media statement above is this: From 20,000 overall submissions only 182 submitters have been heard orally so far with just a month to go before they have to report back to the House. Wow, John Boy, I am so happy with the way you are handling this democratic process—you’re doing a great job there, John Boy—I am so pleased you are putting as much energy into this as you did when you danced Kangnam Style!

A few days ago Stuff—in part—reported:

“Committee 'menacing' to anti-gay-marriage teenager

A teenager opposed to gay marriage has accused select committee members of behaving in a hostile and "menacing" way to submitters who are against a proposed law change for same-sex couples.

Leader of conservative lobby group Family First Bob McCoskrie says the girl was treated apallingly by MPs when she told them during her oral submission that to allow homosexuals to marry would undermine the sanctity of marriage, with one calling her "homophobic" and another getting up for refreshments in the middle of her speech.”

And of course the select committee denied this; however, Bob McCoskrie is absolutely right about this. I posted the following video link the other day; however, it is important to revisit it again here:

Please take time to watch the video here and listen to how appallingly hostile select-committee member Moana Mackey was to Bob McCoskrie when he made his oral submission. She hardly presented herself in an impartial, objective, and unprejudiced manner as she is supposed to. Her role as a member of the select committee is just to collect and listen to facts and not to make subjective, judgemental statements like “I find it offensive…….”

If you didn’t watch the video, this is what happened to McCoskrie:

When McCoskrie said this……..

“Marriage rightly discriminates - a 14 year old cannot get married, three or four people cannot get married to each other, a person who is currently married cannot marry another person, a father cannot marry an adult daughter.”

….Mackey replied with this:

 “I find it very offensive that you're likening same sex marriage to saying we should allow fathers and daughters to marry.”

It is very clear from this that the select committee had already made its mind up on this issue before the process had even begun. They are merely going through the motions to mimic democracy in order to appear democratic to their dumbed-down liberal base.