Why are the New Zealand Christian Right so badly weakened and faltering when it comes to the marriage equality debate? The answer seems to be a mixture of tactical and strategic factors. One, Family First may well have a donor shortfall. As I've observed beforehand, we've only seen proforma submission templates from them online and offline. By contrast, there have been no billboard placards, radio or television advertisements, or even anti-equality bumper stickers. What's going on here? I suspect that there may be several reasons for Family First's apparent financial stringencies. Right to Life may be primarily to blame for this- during its foolhardy and ultimately dead-end court marathon against the Abortion Supervisory Committee, it vacuumed up large volumes of potential donor cash. Moreover, it did so at a time of severe recession. For much the same reason, the US Christian Right is focused primarily on defeating President Obama as the knife-edge US presidential election nears, again at a time of severe recession, so it may be unable to fund the political aspirations of its weaker satellites. Two, the enduring recession has also hit the New Zealand Christian Right hard. The Conservative Party, Family First and Right to Life are the only pressure groups engaging in any form of continuous political activity. Even Family First is finding its small business donor base is in difficulty, given the steep drop insofar as the last Forum on the Family cited small business donor numbers went. There is also notably diminished Christian religious observance in New Zealand, so donations from amenable fundamentalist non-business supporters has shrivelled. By contrast, our community is unified behind marriage equality, as are our institutions. Three, while Pacific Islanders undoubtedly do have higher levels of conservative Christian religious observance than palagi New Zealanders, they are also often more impoverished than many palagi New Zealanders. Mass mobilisation is no good if it is hamstrung by overall poverty and deprivation, as was the case with Destiny Church, its campaign against civil unions and its failed satellite political parties, the Destiny and Family Parties. As for Maori, only John Tamihere and Willie Jackson have publically opposed marriage equality- the Maori and Mana Parties are onside. I suspect Brian Tamaki is silent because the LGBT community would point to the gay sex scandal that recently ended the career of his former African-American mentor, former "Bishop" Eddie Long. Four, one can't help but almost feel sorry for Colin Craig, for once. Clearly, he isn't as malicious, militant and extremist as Ian Wishart and Bob McCoskrie are when it comes to opposition to marriage equality, because he's a relative newcomer to Christian Right activism. His problem is that Wishart and McCoskrie do not seem to realise the need for civility and restraint within their outbursts over the subject of LGBT rights, resorting to vitriolic rhetoric and discredited pseudoscience from the likes of Bill Muehlenberg, Paul Cameron and other overseas Christian Right homophobes. However, as the Coalition of Concerned Citizens found when it staged its "Nuremberg Rally" outside Parliament in 1986, and Destiny Church found when its "Enough is Enough" march took place against civil unions in 2005, displays of incivility, intolerance and extremism turn off the general public and end up in self-sabotage. Five, Bob McCoskrie obviously isn't the best front person for the campaign against marriage equality. He's a populist and uncomfortable with the evidence-based needs of credible presentation of public policy. When it came to his Protect Marriage website, there has therefore been minimal stockpiling of potentially useful research from international law, paediatrics or developmental psychology. There was the Regnerus study, but he appeared to back away from it rapidly when he realised that we were ready and prepared to respond with links to its mainstream detractors. Merely continually referring to Public Discourse, the inhouse journal of the flawed study's Witherspoon Institute funder does not constitute "vindication." One suspects that McCoskrie would not survive a prepared, informed and disciplined debating team from our side, and he knows it, which is why he's left such efforts to the more amenable if naive Colin Craig. At some point, I suspect that desperation will set in and McCoskrie may call on assistance from his American-Australian Christian Right counterpart Bill Muehlenberg, whose intemperate and immoderate behaviour render him a liability in waiting. Before that happens, I intend to acquaint myself with the gentleman in question's background and public statements beforehand. Finally, conservative Catholics are missing from this campaign. They have other priorities- namely Maryan Street's End of Life Choices Bill, which demands most of their attention and resources. Unlike their fundamentalist Protestant counterparts, they are focused primarily on an issue that they will probably win, given that Catholic Right opponents of euthanasia law reform are using the work of more mainstream medical practitioners organisations opposed to reform to good effect. Evidently, McCoskrie is concerned at the absence of conservative Catholics within the anti-equality offensive. Otherwise, why would he have spotlighted the work of Brendan Malone (Family Life International) and conservative Catholic Princeton University law professor Robert George on his Protect Marriage website? However, that doesn't mean that there aren't any tensions between the two constituent religious communities of the New Zealand Christian Right- there's still the question of binding citizens referenda. Family First supports it, conservative Catholics don't, given that there have already been four affirmative euthanasia law reform referenda in Switzerland and the United States. If Massachusetts becomes the fourth jurisdiction within the United States to approve physician assisted suicide on November 7, then those anxieties can only increase. Privately, I suspect many conservative Catholics have already written off the prospects of marriage equality opponents and may regard them as an unwelcome distraction. If the above do turn out to be valid suppositions, then this may turn out to be a brief and victorious campaign of unprecedented magnitude for our communities. One hopes that New Zealand's militant fundamentalist homophobes have already booked their one-way tickets to Australia well beforehand, as they will probably need them. Craig Young - 22nd November 2012