Written By: - Date published: 3:16 pm, August 29th, 2008 - 57 comments
Categories: national, youtube -
Tags: grant robertson, national, stephen franks, wellington central
Here’s National’s Wellington Central candidate Stephen Franks giving his view on Civil Unions.
I’m not even really sure what to say about it. It might just be best to let Stephen Franks speak for himself…
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Anita
Well they shouldn’t. It’s as simple as that. The likes of the civil union bill is a start and adding in rights for Polyamory although contentious is something that should never have been excluded in the first place. When the state seeks to control how we form intimate/loving/parenting relationships with other adults it has gone to far.
Indeed, we do need to know that these people have a social engineering or control agenda beyond law and order.
Kevyn Miller
Well yes and no… I agree that doing it because it’s required is a bit weird, what sort of religion would seek to suppress one of human natures most basic desires? A bit like govts I suppose the answer to that is one that wants to control how people live their lives for their own agenda.
However I personally think that the concept of voluntary abstinence is pretty weird. I can easily understand how people don’t want the complications of relationships and the expectations such as monogamy that may come with them – but total abstention is something I can’t understand. That’s not to say it’s wrong – but imagine if I were a control freak politician and I legislated that people must have sex at least once every 6 months because I don’t understand abstinence. As weird as that sounds it is actually no more over the top than people saying a civil union must only be between two adults.
burt said: I can easily understand how people don’t want the complications of relationships and the expectations such as monogamy that may come with them – but total abstention is something I can’t understand.
Ever heard of masturbation burt? Many people choose to masturbate for their sexual satisfaction rather than have a sequence of emotionally meaningless sexual liaisons (or one long-term emotionally meaningless one for that matter).
Bugger me peter how appropriate a Toad is the master of wanking. Talk about lickspittles.
toad
I wouldn’t count a person who isn’t actively in meaningless relationships but masturbates as being a person who is abstaining from sex. They are clearly abstaining from relationships but not from sex.
Various religions might seek to make a person in this situation feel guilty of being ‘immoral’ or ‘wrong’ but I wouldn’t pass such judgment. If you are describing yourself or a friend of yours then good on you – knock yourself out.
D4J
I’ll issue you a challenge. Only post again in this thread if you have never masturbated.
Good points burt.
d4j, the challenge is open on frogblog too, for that matter.
People, I know that the topic leads to it a bit. But I’ll start using a sock (with a brick in it) here shortly if the abuse level rises further.
I might add that this is the sock I’ve had on while traipsing around a hill farm today. It is also the sock that made my girlfriend start talking about deal-breakers when she accidentally leaned over it after I’d pulled the disgustingly muddy and smelling thing off.
Hell I’m afraid of this sock – where are the tweezers and the washing machine. Let me tell you that it was a bit wet and cold on the hills north of Auckland today. Damn the forecasters – they promised scattered showers.
Oh well the sock is less dirty than the original topic of this thread.
Yes Lynn socks can get rather high when they’re in jackboots all day
Running shoes – was not the right choice today.
I’d have taken the tramping boots if the forecast had been for “bloody freezing rain coming down continuously and sideways due to a stiff wind”. But it was for scattered showers, which means to me that most of the time it will not be what I accurately described it as.
BTW: The current fashion for women appears to be for high boots. But personally I wouldn’t suggest wearing those out of slippery wet paddocks either. However using them on other slippery things, preferably with extremely sharp toes to pin down a straight policy answer…
An image to consider.
what an advert for National – let me see…jumped ship from ACT and now trying to reinvent himself ..drives around Wellington in a mustard 60′s retro VW!!! How very national…still, he can’t hide (get it) the narrow minded intolerent right wing ideology no matter the change in wheels.
Anita,
Are you aware that Key voted against the Civil Unions Bill?
Why shouldn’t he be associated with National Party anti Civil Union rhetoric?
Voting against the Civil Unions bill doesn’t mean you think homosexuals are “whining gays”. To tie those comments to Key seems to be a long stretch.
Scribe,
Has Key done anything to dissociate himself from Franks comments?
Anita,
He probably has no idea the comments were even made.
Scribe, Franks was making those same arguments back when the bill was passed.
How about you, what do you think of Franks argument that allowing Civil Unions means we should let him marry his dog in order to be consistent?
Personally I think it’s a retarded argument that completely misses the point.
I also think that Franks knows this and is just cynically pandering to Christian conservatives. If I was a Christian conservative that would piss me right off, because it would mean he thinks I am the type to be convinced by retarded arguments.
How about you, do you find the argument to be retarded or do you think it makes sense, relationship wise?
I think this post of mine on g.blog just about sums up where he’s coming from.
I posted it as a bit of a dig at the Family Party, but it probably also applies to a few Nats.
Pb,
Franks’ argument is silly, in fact so silly it’s strange that intelligent people like you are taking it seriously and asking questions like this.
I think Franks genuinely believes, as I did, that allowing civil unions had the potential to open up a can of worms on the recognition of relationships in the future. Hence the concern some people had when Dyson talked — or didn’t talk — about singles, couples and triples.
I would consider myself a Christian conservative — most here would call me a ragin’ fundamentalist — and the comments don’t “piss me right off”. Again, most people realise his comments were taking legitimate concerns to an intentionally ridiculous conclusion.
But I don’t take his slippery slope argument seriously scribe. That’s why I called it retarded a few times, and suggested that Franks wasn’t being serious himself in making it.
What legitimate concerns? Box turtles? Kitchen chairs perhaps? The point is about consent scribe. A dog can’t get married. Nor can a child or a box turtle or a kitchen chair. None of these can give informed consent to the relationship, and that’s why such fears are under no threat from Civil Unions. That is what makes Franks argument retarded, and it is why his reductio misses the point.
I think I understand that you are a big fan of social engineering, (that you think the govt should restrict how adults should are able to arrange their affairs for the betterment of society), but Franks’ argument isn’t just silly, it misses the point entirely.
Pb,
I think I understand that you are a big fan of personal freedom. So three or five or 13 consenting adults should be allowed to engage in polygamy?
scribe. when you say ‘engage in polgamy’ do you mean have a multi-member relationship or have that relationship legally rrecognised? by using ‘engage in’ I assume you mean the former, and that is already legal. There is no legal restriction on the arrangement of relationships or the number of people participating in one – however, legal recognition is limited to couples.
They already do scribe. Especially if you take a ‘traditional’ view of marriage. Serial monogamy is just another form of adultery in your view, no?
Do you think we should use the law to actively try to stop them, pretend they don’t exist but make life difficult for them, or recognise them?
I was expressing the concerns some people had that passing the CUB might one day lead to legal recognition of polygamous relationships.
Dyson’s speech/non-speech reignited those fears.
Polygamy tends to be the domain of heterosexual religious types – sort of ironic that now we gays are getting lumped in with them as well! Want to blame us for overpopulation as well?