There's nothing civil about civil unions, crows United Future in a press release which chides and patronises MP Chris Carter for daring to think his 30-year relationship means anything. "Marriage is like a single blanket on a shared double bed; everyone in a relationship wants it (or maybe its legal protections). Much has been said about that venerable institution and at best, much has been misleading," says the party who has so far been most vocal on criticising civil unions before the bill has even been released. "Chris Carter's nonsensical ruminations about the intersection between marriage and religion say more about his prejudices than it does about anything else. One thing has been made abundantly clear; the Labour Government's advocacy of its so-called 'human rights' agenda, (of which the Civil Union Bill forms a part), is based on the notion that all 'rights-based precepts' can be promoted without reference neither to their relative merits nor to their advantages to our traditions and culture. "By rendering marriage, de facto relationships and the proposed Civil Union as being of equivalent social standing, Herr Helen and her PC apostles will strip marriage of its force as the glue that binds our intergenerational social stability."