Dear Mr Franks, I'm writing to thank you for your support of the Civil Union Bills, and your fair and reasoned comments made in the media this week about supporters of it. Sitting on the Justice and Electoral Select Committee and having to listen to those whining gays and lesbians banging on about fairness and tolerance all day must be taxing, and I can understand why you berated David Friar from Auckland's Civil Unions campaign for ten minutes because you didn't agree with the defacto provisions in the Relationships Bill. I know some Select Committee members think you went a little far, and Nandor Tanzcos called a point of order to stop you hectoring Mr Friar, but what would you expect from a dope-smoking Greenie? They're all the same, lefties and poofters. The more I think about it, the more I agree with your sentiment that Mr Friar's submission was all just “flowery words,” as you said at the hearing. The “homosexual lobby” really is getting above itself, and I think you're the man to put them in their place. After all, as you were overheard saying to a woman who made a submission “against” civil unions at the hearing on Monday, you wouldn't mind if they [us gays and lesbians that is] were second-class citizens. This was your response to her when said she wouldn't like to see them treated as such. Good on you! In radio interviews this week, you've continued to let the public know what trash the Select Committee has been hearing from civil union supporters. Some of the submissions have been “sinister,” you said, especially ones from the likes of the New Zealand AIDS Foundation, who seek to label all anti-gay opinions as discriminatory. I mean, if you're against something, then you are discriminating against it, but that's by-the-by. After taking a look through the AIDS Foundation's submission, I'd have to say you've got it bang on. What right have they got to refute submissions from the likes of Neil Whitehead, a fundamentalist Baptist with no qualifications in genetic research perjuring himself before your committee by misquoting Australian studies on gay twins? Whitehead also inflated the AIDS statistics by several thousands in order to prove most gay men are going to pop their clogs within the next ten years, but what would the AIDS Foundation know about statistics and life expectancy of HIV sufferers? But in spite of having to listen to all this nonsense, you're still going to support the bill, a true measure of your fairness. However, in keeping with the balanced principles we've come to know and love, you want to make sure it's re-drafted to make it clear it doesn't endorse same-sex relationships. What a groundbreaking provision! A piece of law that actually contains a moral judgement as one of its statutes. That's the future of New Zealand. “Lawful doesn't mean laudable,” you said, and you were oh-so-right. Gays and lesbians have this reinforced on a daily basis through the attitudes of a society where at least 90% of the population aren't like them, but we'd better make sure they never forget some people think they're immoral perverts by writing it into the law. Some people are getting annoyed with you, saying you're inconsistent. Media commentator Russell Brown even noted this week that you were “pissing” him off, noting your “pristine moral clarity” in making sure the homos don't label the Christians as bigots, when you're busy labelling Maori activists as racists for stating their opinions. Well I say to you, Mr Franks, ignore Russell. Because in this land of individual freedom and choice that the Act Party stands for, it is your democratic right to be as inconsistent as you want, in line with our fine Judeo-Christian tradition. As long as we live in a country where the bits about gays in the Bible are to be listened to while the bits about not eating shellfish shouldn't be, then I say long live inconsistency and selective criticism! Your friend in (im)moral liberty, Christopher Banks Chris Banks - 27th August 2004