Don't judge a book by its cover – the old maxim (excuse the pun) may still be true. Maxim Institute, the far-right Christian think tank, publishes a quarterly journal, titled Evidence. At least one article in the November 2003 issue, titled ‘Where is the government taking the family?' by John McNeil is severely lacking in evidence. The article begins by citing an anthropologist, John Unwin, who has studied the importance of marriage to civilisations. However, Mr McNeil is quick to assert that civilisation as we know it is in decline by asserting that a succession of New Zealand governments have passed legislation that dilutes marriage. The Domestic Purposes Benefit is attacked for causing single parent families. Does this imply that parents are choosing to go on the domestic purposes benefit, rather than stay in a healthy relationship? The Property Amendment Act is also criticised because it places de facto relationships on the same footing as marriage. These acts were intended to empower women, giving them increased economic power with the acknowledgment that domestic responsibilities, in the past, were not valued in economic terms. Perhaps the empowerment of women was not at the forefront of Mr McNeil's concerns. He goes on to analyse the proposed Civil Union Bill which will provide same sex relationships with equal rights to married couples and ends by predicting it will “leave marriage hanging by a legal thread”. Mr McNeil argues that homosexuals do not deserve the right to marry, just as paedophiles and people who engage in bestiality do not deserve the right either. This argument ignores any notion of sexual power. Society does not condone a sexual relationship between a child and an adult or an animal and an adult because the power relationship is not balanced. However, don't two consenting homosexual partners, comparatively speaking, share a balanced power relationship? If the majority of society is in agreement that two consenting homosexuals can share a sexual relationship, then following that logic, should they not also be granted legally recognised relationship status? It would be interesting to go one step further and ask Mr McNeil if homosexuals should not be able to marry on the grounds that, according to his religious beliefs, sex outside of marriage is frowned upon. However, the most interesting aspect of Mr McNeil's argument is his dependency on and choice of researchers and a failure to note the vast criticisms levelled at their work. The Maxim Institute does not commission its own research. It relies on various Christian far-right think tanks overseas. Bell and Weinberg's study of homosexual relationship trends is the first study that McNeil turns to. According to Bell and Weinberg: “28% of white male homosexuals estimated they'd had sex with more than 1,000 partners” and “43% estimated they'd had sex with 500 or more partners”. Criticism of this research is well documented. The Hunter Institute of Mental Health, a provider of postgraduate mental health study in Australia, has labelled the sample of homosexuals used by Bell and Weinberg as “non-representative”. The study obtained 40% of its sample from gay nightclubs and bathhouses. Weinberg and Bell then compared the samples' sexual behaviour to urban (and in some cases married) heterosexuals. This method of selecting a sample could be compared to interviewing men who use female prostitutes and then claiming they represent a wider heterosexual community. “Homosexuals themselves say marriage for them has to be open.” Mr McNeil attributes this to his second source, Andrew Sullivan. An article published in The Nation (June 5 2001) is titled ‘Andrew Sullivan, Overexposed'. Mr Sullivan is an HIV positive homosexual male who in a 1996 New York Times Magazine article claimed prematurely that the AIDs epidemic was ending due to the availability of new medicines. Mr Sullivan is also known to have posted a personal advertisement including two headless photographs on a website called barebackcity.com, expressing an interest in “bi-scenes, one-on-ones, three-ways, groups, parties, orgies and gang bangs”. Without passing judgements on Mr Sullivan's personal life, it would be problematic to claim that his actions are common in the homosexual community. In light of this, it would be a mistake to take Mr Sullivan's assertions on homosexual relationships as representative of the homosexual community. “Homosexuals claim studies show that children of same-sex parents are not disadvantaged or badly affected. American researchers Robert Lerner and Althea Nagai [as well as Lynn Wardle] evaluated 49 of these studies. All 49 were found to have at least one major flaw.” The Tasmanian Law Reform Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) site several problematic issues concerning Robert Lerner and Althea Nagai's research. “They were funded by an anti-gay group to write No Basis: [What the studies don't tell us about same-sex parenting]. The ACLU claims that in the past Mr Lerner has been funded by an undisclosed organisation to conduct research on rape statistics His research found that African Americans were three times more likely to be acquitted of rape charges than white rapists people accused of rape. Mr Lerner examined only five cases to arrive at this conclusion. He dismissed a study of 25 gay parents for using an insufficient sample size. Professor Lynn Wardle of the University of Illinois has been extensively criticised by academics from inside his own University of Illinois for a range of poor research practices and a lack of evidence. He has also been known to draw on the research of defamed American writer Paul Cameron. Mr Cameron was struck off the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association for unethical practices, including intentionally manipulating statistics and “making claims that could not be substantiated” This is a short review of only one of the Maxim Institute's articles. The researchers that Mr McNeil uses have in some cases been found guilty of manufacturing evidence and in other cases are frequently found lacking in evidence. Sources: www.aclu.org/ Hunter Institute of Mental Health, Sydney, Australia Jeramy Townsley, PhD student: University California, Berkeley for a PhD in Ethics and Social Theory. The Nation John O'Neill: "Where is the Government Taking the Family" (7.10.03): [Edward Gay - his real name - is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Communications with a major in journalism at the Auckland University of Technology - Ed.] Edward Gay - 17th May 2004