blogging it real

So the opponents of the Civil Unions Bill (CUB) have suddenly become advocates of referenda to decide minority rights ... nice one, jerks. Minority rights, and the duty of the state not to discriminate against minorities, exist independent of popular sentiment. As the Bill's chief defenders argued in the Herald today:

Mr Benson-Pope argued the Government had a legal responsibility to remove discrimination in the law.

New Zealand has human rights laws that say lesbian and gay people should not be discriminated against.

Mr Barnett said New Zealand's relationship laws did discriminate because these offered no legal status for same-sex couples, and civil unions solved that problem.

"If they are subject to a referendum then New Zealand's whole human rights law is under threat," Mr Barnett said in a statement.

Three political parties had in their election manifestos undertaken to support such legislation.

Four polls showed majority public backing for the proposals, he said.

And, moreover, there's no indication that popular sentiment is against the CUB, as Russell Brown at Hard News has been pointing out over the last couple of days.

JustLeft and NoRightTurn have been speaking out on the issue.

Plus, look at the scoundrels promoting the referendum: legendary blowhard Stephen Franks, NZ_First benchwarmers like Peter Brown, Darth George, Don "man of principle" Brash (his only principle being tax cuts for the rich, as NRT pointed out), the Catholic hierarchy, and so on. Wankers the lot of them.

Word to Stephen Franks: let's put public access to farmer's land to a referendum shall we?

Word to the Catholic Church: a referendum in C19th NZ would have supported banning Catholics from public office, if not criminalizing them altogether.

Word to all these tossers: a referendum today could well support abolishing the Treaty of Waitangi.