fucking politics

[labellementeuse]

1. There's a really interesting discussion in this thread on ffa about some Black Widow scenes in the Avengers (being circuitous so I don't have to cut this for spoilers). I'm linking to the whole thread but I found the top subthread most interesting, particularly this comment and this one. (I'm not in this thread at all so you don't need to strain yourself trying to figure out who is me, which I always do when I get linked to an anon meme thread).

2. That really annoying thing where I had something perfect to post about at work this morning, it was like, a witty observation even, and I didn't write it down and I've completely forgotten it. Rarr. It was either about hockey or Barack Obama. Or just possibly David Shearer.

3. Relatedly, there's something about straight people getting on Grant Robertson's case about marriage equality that really sets my teeth on edge. No one could agree more than I that it would have been nice to get marriage equality rather than civil unions during the recent Labour Government, but does anyone actually remember the climate around the civil union debate? (I seriously think a lot of the people I follow on Twitter don't.) It was fucking unpleasant and it wasn't exactly something the Labour Party expended 0 political capital on in an easy appeasing mood, which seems like a lot of the attitude. Oh, civil unions are the easy slimy separate but equal option - well, that's true, they are, but I don't think at the time there was room for the hard option.

4. Hey, can we not give, like, Bill English and John Key a hard time for their record on same-sex marriage? Hey, while Opposition parties are really important, why aren't we giving the fucking government a hard time about their lack of movement on reforming the Adoption Act and introducing same-sex marriage? This is supposed to be the new Tories, innit? Hip and socially liberal and down with the kids?

5. Also, eugenics. Don't let the beneficiaries breed, sez John.

Comments

[hazel]

Re #3: I agree that it would have been good to get marriage equality rather than civil unions. Having said that, to the best of my knowledge, every single reference in legislation to "marriage/spouse" now also includes a reference to "civil union/civil union partner" and "de facto relationship/de facto partner" - with the one exception of the Adoption Act 1955. So: I totally agree that the word is important! But at the same time, de facto relationships and civil unions are, legally, very very recognised in NZ law and I feel like that gets missed in the debate sometimes (because lots of jurisdictions don't recognise de facto relationships in statute law at all, and offer civil unions that have substantially fewer rights than marriage).

Re adoption specifically, I also agree that it's in desperate need of an overhaul; but at the same time I can see why they didn't deal with it when they dealt with de facto relationships first and then civil unions a few years later - because like you said, they used up a huge amount of political capital to get as far as they got.

blah politics. I think that a lot of the social legislation Labour managed between 1999 and 2008 has been so well accepted by mainstream New Zealand (the gays getting unionised DIDN'T make the sky fall in!) that people forget that this shit was ALL hugely controversial at the time. Which says good things about mainstream NZ's capacity for change, I guess?

[labellementeuse]

So: I totally agree that the word is important! But at the same time, de facto relationships and civil unions are, legally, very very recognised in NZ law and I feel like that gets missed in the debate sometimes (because lots of jurisdictions don't recognise de facto relationships in statute law at all, and offer civil unions that have substantially fewer rights than marriage)

Yup, these are more or less my thoughts on the matter. Same-sex marriage would be great but at the end of the day I would prefer the Opposition gets to work on the Adoption Act at bare minimum, or preferably, like, welfare reform. That would be good for me.

I think that a lot of the social legislation Labour managed between 1999 and 2008 has been so well accepted by mainstream New Zealand (the gays getting unionised DIDN'T make the sky fall in!) that people forget that this shit was ALL hugely controversial at the time.

I think this is simultaneously true (so that Labour doesn't get much credit fro the Left for the social legislation) and yet Labour gets hammered for having been too concerned with social legislation - so that the previous government seems uniquely ineffective: they made a lot of policy changes that are now invisible so we don't acknowledge them, and we criticise them for spending so much time on that legislation.

Meanwhile, the National Government literally wants to nanny beneficiaries, choosing what they can spend money on and where, when they work and even the medical treatment they get, but good luck getting that narrative media traction.