In response to Joel van Ameringen, 5 April, who sounds like an intelligent man. When a person becomes an MP, commonsense flies out the window, and political correctness storms through the door, with self interest raining through the leaky roof, and self aggrandisement seeping though the walls.
Giving one's personal opinion would make one a phobic of one thing or another, and I think it is just too hard for a politician to stand up and go against the flow, even though most probably 80% of them want to.
Statesmen used to but these days we only have politicians. They don't care, because they turn round and say ‘if you are unhappy about the state of the nation, have your say at the next elections'. But that doesn't really change anything, does it? We still get one or two one-eyed sheep, from the party list. with the rest of the mob blindly following them.
I'm not phobic about anything, except vermin, and I don't care what two consenting adults do, as long it does not impinge on anyone. But while on this particular subject, I do know what Mother Nature intended: that sex is for the propagation of the species, and for at least 99.9% of all living things, it takes a male and a female for this to happen and then to raise the young to healthy and happy adulthood. Marriage is a man-made institution, based on this. Where Mother Nature made a booboo, was making sex enjoyable.
Modern people also came up with Civil Union, which affords the same rights and privileges as marriage. So why all this hoohaa? Just everyone, get on with your lives, the same as 99% of us do, and live according to our beliefs and persuasions, without having to shout it to the world, and waste precious Parliament time. They have better things to do. eg productivity, full employment, health, education, and all these other things that are promised to the minions every three years.
Just live and let live, and the world would be a better place.

R Smith, Tauranga.