Auckland mayor Dick Hubbard says he's been 'teeing up' with Ian Grant of the religious-right group Parenting With Confidence, which sit uneasily alongside his claim to GayNZ.com on the eve of the mayoral election that he is a very 'moderate' type of Christian. Grant is also a co-signatory to the letter sent to MPs, and signed by Dick Hubbard as Mayor of Auckland, which urged parliamentarians to vote against the Civil Union Bill on the basis that gay parents were more likely to abuse and murder their children, citing statistics from fundamentalist Christian sources. “I am concerned about emphasis on the families, and that's why I've been teeing up with the chappie who runs the Parenting With Confidence programme, Ian Grant,” Hubbard told GayNZ.com. “I would have liked to have seen more emphasis on the family, the children side, and I want to get my head around implications of changes to the Adoption Act.” Parenting With Confidence has links to the religious-right think tank Maxim Institute. Ian Grant was involved in its founding, and Maxim's current managing director Greg Fleming was formerly the managing director of Parenting With Confidence. Although the letter quotes studies found on Maxim's website, Hubbard denies "absolutely, categorically" any personal connections with the Institute. He says Maxim were not involved in the writing of the letter, however, a Google search reveals the statistics in the letter also appearing on fundamentalist Christian websites worldwide. Hubbard says the letter was written by John Sax, whom he says he's known for 2-3 years. Sax and his wife Alma signed the letter in their capacity as heads of the South Park Corporation. Other signatories to the letter were author Alan Duff, Ralph
Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff
First published: Thursday, 9th December 2004 - 12:00pm