Gordon Copeland A former MP’s comparison of marriage equality to apartheid has been rebuked as “offensive” by the Chair of the Select Committee hearing submissions on the issue. Gordon Copeland told the Committee allowing gay people to marry was like calling the New Zealand Maori rugby team "honorary whites" in the tour to South Africa. "These two relationships are different relationships and putting them together is debasing marriage," the former United Future MP said. Committee chair, Labour MP Ruth Dyson, said the comments were offensive and inappropriate. "You need to think about how you made people feel with those comments,” she said. Gay Labour MP Charles Chauvel, who is sitting on the Select Committee, replied to Copeland: "As gays and lesbians, think about how that analogy makes us feel.” Copeland responded that he believes civil unions are sufficient for gay couples: "We've all seen on television the people having their champagne and so forth at civil unions. So it seems to me that this move, from my point of view, is actually to try and pretend that that's not good enough." Copeland is reported to have said “that is just stupid,” when confronted with a question over whether his comments were homophobic outside the hearing. Copeland was president of the now defunct Kiwi Party, which he co-founded with another former United Future list MP Larry Baldock in 2007. He stood as a candidate for the Conservative Party in the last election as the Kiwi Party did not contest it. He received 3.17 percent of the Hutt South electorate vote.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 14th November 2012 - 2:26pm