Civil Unions 101

Chris Carter, elected as the country’s first openly gay MP in 1993, spoke to LA’s The Advocate about gay rights in NZ and the Civil Union Bill. “The reason that we haven’t gone for marriage is that politically that would be very difficult to pass in our parliament. But secondly, we also feel from a personal and a political point of view that the term marriage is loaded with tradition … Our law is based on the French model, where since 1999, when civil unions came in, about 95,000 people have participated, of which about half have been straight couples. Our Prime Minister herself said she would prefer a civil union, since it doesn’t have that traditional religious aspect, because she’s not religious.”