LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East)
: This morning I looked up my third reading speech on the Human Rights Bill in 1993. On that day I said I was proud to be a member of Parliament, and I am proud again today. I spoke about prejudice that day, and I want to speak about it again today. Prejudice is a bias—a preconceived opinion. It can involve prejudging people, based on a characteristic like race or ethnicity, or on a grouping they belong to, like a political party. I have often said that prejudice is based on ignorance, and that knowledge is the most powerful weapon against it. Prejudice against people because of a lifestyle choice is often based on ignorance because it is not a lifestyle choice that they would choose for themselves, nor one they can readily understand. It is therefore vital that we build understanding between people who are different.
The classic example is religious belief, a lifestyle that many New Zealanders are born into or adopt during their lives. People often do not understand the faith that others place in their God, and they can be prejudiced against them as a result. One does not have to share the faith to have an understanding of, and respect for, the right of such people to hold that faith and to worship their God in their own way in the privacy of their own home, in a church, or even on the street, as long as it is not illegal or offensive. I was brought up in the Catholic faith. We were taught, and this was reinforced every Sunday, that ours was the one true faith. How lucky was that—to be born into a family that was Catholic, the only faith that counted!
Actually, I had a lot of luck on my side when I chose the circumstances of my birth. I was born into majority status in every respect—white, female, and heterosexual. The year 1960 was a great year to be born, with a parent at home and a parent in paid work, grandmothers available to come and stay when babies were born, no TV until after I started school, no videos, no PlayStation, and no Internet. It may have left me ill-equipped for the information age, but I learnt to read, I learnt to use my imagination, and I learnt to think for myself.
The ability to think for myself is something that is challenged by calls from the Church within which I was raised for me to set aside one of the principles it stands for, one of the values it taught me, and that is the one that affirms committed, faithful, loving relationships between two people who wish to share their lives together. It asked me to set aside that principle because the couple is same-sex. The hundreds of New Zealanders who came to the Justice and Electoral Committee spoke of their love for their country, love for their husbands, wives, and partners, and love for their children. It did not matter which side of the debate they were on; they all spoke of those things. But there was a sense of loss from those who were opposed to this bill, and I think others are right when they say that the slogan “Enough is enough!” found a convenient home with civil union, when it was really about a whole lot of other things.
But are those people looking back at the golden era of my childhood with rose-tinted glasses? It was a time when parents stayed together for the sake of the children, even if they had unhappy or unfulfilling lives, or, worse, the relationships were violent and abusive. If people were the minority race, they dared not even speak a word of their own language at school, and if they were homosexual, well, they did not really suffer prejudice, because they hid their sexuality from everyone—sometimes even from themselves.
This bill is important because it provides recognition for relationships that matter.
