The man behind the infamous Hubbard anti-civil unions letter, Auckland businessman John Sax, is not merely a concerned citizen looking out for the 'family'. Interviewed by GayNZ.com, Sax revealed himself to be yet another player in the scary game of anti-gay Christian right stealth activism creeping its way through the echelons of authority in New Zealand. And John Sax, disturbingly, has the ear of prominent businesspeople and civic leaders including Air New Zealand CEO Ralph Norris, Pro-Vice Chancellor (Maori) Michael Brown of Auckland University, noted (“Once were Warriors” and the Books in Homes project) author Alan Duff and Auckland mayor Dick Hubbard. All four of these signed a letter, which Sax actually prepared, urging MPs to vote down the Civil Union Bill because it was implied, among other things, that gay people were more likely to abuse and murder their children. None of these signatories did any research of their own – they took Sax's outrageous claims at face value and freely put their names (and in some cases, titles and wives' names) to a lobbying document without a moment's investigation of its content; which has since been revealed to be based on misleading and un-scientific research. When interviewed by GayNZ.com, Sax's first response was not to defend the content of the letter, but to express his dismay that a “private and confidential” letter – written to MPs – had been leaked into the public domain. His initial concern was more for being revealed as a stealthy activist than making slanderous claims about a minority. In an interview full of contradictions, Sax told us that he didn't call himself a Christian, “but I do believe God's plan for humanity was a wonderful plan. The principles that Jesus taught are wonderful principles. He had a lot of time for the prostitutes, the beggars, and the people left behind.” Despite the fact that none of the research cited in Sax's letter mentioned gay couples specifically, he told us: “In my comments, there is an assumption that same-sex relationships are not going to fare as well [as heterosexual ones] in terms of outcome.” When asked what his backlash against defacto heterosexual couples and solo parents had to do with gay unions being recognised under the Civil Union Bill, Sax deflected the blame for highlighting his prejudice back onto gays. “The gay community is driving that, and I'm saying no, that is not good for our children,” he said. “There's too much selfishness in our community. We need to help heterosexual relationships work better.” He told us of his connections to the Maxim Institute, the assistance they provided him regarding his letter, his beliefs on homosexuality as a choice and that same-sex relationships should be “discouraged”. "IF WE LOVE OUR CHILDREN, WE WILL CONSCIOUSLY DISCRIMINATE AGAINST ENTIRE GROUPS OF PEOPLE" JOHN SAX: From where I sit, I'm not really that interested [in gay issues]. No disrespect. But at the end of the day, we've just got to be as truthful and honest and pragmatic and open as we can, and I would love to see the gay community doing their bit in all of this as well. Everybody has to. It's not them or us, or solo mums versus whatever. Look, our gardener is gay. And he's been in a long-term relationship. We love him to bits, he's a fabulous human being. And he bought up a couple of kids that were ugly, abused kids out of a heterosexual relationship. But statistically, we stack the odds against our children. I'm sure most gays would do a great job, but we don't want to stack the odds. CHRIS BANKS: So based on an average, which seems to differ depending on what study you look at, we should discriminate against an entire group of people? SAX: [emphatic] Absolutely. If we love our children, we will consciously discriminate against entire groups of people. If we love the children of our nation, we will consciously discriminate and say this form of union is inferior to that, we will do the best we can to give you the best. BANKS: So homosexual unions are inferior? SAX: If you look at the statistical outcomes, and really I'm not too worried about that, but if you go back there's an awful lot more science on de facto, live-in boyfriends, and so on, there is no question, absolutely no question in my mind, and you don't need to worry about science either, Chris. The simplest way is walk downtown and talk to the crown prosecutor. Walk downtown and talk to CYPFS. The 19.6 phone calls they get per hour of bashed up, beaten up and abused kids I can tell you where most of those come from, and they will tell you... BANKS: They come from heterosexual relationships. SAX: The majority don't. There's a huge disproportionate representation. Some come from heterosexual without doubt, there's a lot of ugly ones there too... BANKS: So you're saying CYPFS are being inundated with calls about kids being abused inside gay relationships? SAX: There's no differential, I'm sure they don't ask where they come from. The majority come from, I doubt whether they keep stats on that. The majority come from solo mums with live in boyfriends... BANKS: So those are heterosexual relationships. SAX: Absolutely. Absolutely. That's exactly the point I'm saying. BANKS: So what does that have to do with gay relationships? The point of your letter was to encourage MPs to vote against the Civil Union Bill, which was to give same-sex couples a chance to have their relationships legally recognised, and give them protection under the law. What does that have to do with everything we've been discussing? SAX: If we're normalising and saying every form of relationship is the same, and that might be the civil libertarian or PC view, I'm telling you – it isn't. In terms of social outcome, it is definitely not the same. And so we have to go back and say how do we encourage what works best. Because if we consider the position of our children, that's our responsibility. And so the solo mums have got to be asking that question, the solo dads, the live-in boyfriends, before they break their commitment... BANKS: But you still haven't answered what that's got to do with gay couples and the Civil Union Bill. SAX: But Chris if you hear what I'm saying, and what I'm sure these people are saying, the co-signatories [of the Hubbard letter], is back to the issue of children are precious, let's go back to focussing on them first. BANKS: What about the gay and lesbian children? How do you think it would feel to them to grow up in a world where they're being told that their unions are inferior – by their parents? SAX: This is children, in those? Sorry your question was? BANKS: I'm talking children generally. I'm a gay man and I grew up with two married heterosexual parents. SAX: Yeah sure. BANKS: That's how most children grow up. SAX: [sighs] Chris, the whole thrust must be, we must celebrate diversity, but we must love all our children in the hope that they have the best possible outcome. We should be saying hang on, wait a minute, there are things that are important in life, and here's some of the foundation stones that are important, let's nurture you through those. Let's give you a sense of hope and inspire you to be the person you really should be. "WE ALL HAVE ORIENTATIONS, BUT THEN WE CHOOSE OUR BEHAVIOUR" SAX: As a dad and a mum, we've taken in kids that have been wards of the state, that have been physically removed, for many many years... BANKS: Any gay or lesbian kids? SAX: Yes we have, yeah. BANKS: So what do you tell them? SAX: You just love them. You just support them and encourage them to be the best they can be, you don't be judgmental, you don't be condemning, you do nothing of the sort. You just, just as the people that work with us too. As I said, our gardener we love to bits. Our first house manager was gay, fabulous guy. So you don't need to go into it. To me its the same with every sector of the community, the mentoring kids I'm talking about are school age ones. And so every week for many years I'd go into school and sit down with the kids that have generally been left behind, and encourage them to dream dreams. You're not being judgmental, you're not behind condemning, you're not saying you're a miserable moron... BANKS: Is homosexuality a choice? SAX: I think all behaviour is ultimately a choice. So if you look at all behaviour everywhere, we choose what we do. BANKS: So it's a behaviour, not an orientation? SAX: I think we all have orientations, but then we choose our behaviour. So every aspect of behaviour in society, is a choice that we make. So if you look at, of the things that are important, treating people with dignity, honesty, respect, justice, kindness charity and so on, we choose those. And so our behaviour is a result of those choices. And so what we're about in a society, we have to be encouraging good choices, right choices, but we do treat people with dignity and respect, and we don't abuse and condemn and be judgmental. BANKS: So homosexuality would be a bad choice? SAX: For who? You mean for parenting? Or individuals? BANKS: What you seem to be saying is you think gays and lesbians choose to be the way that they are. SAX: No not at all. Our behaviour we choose. Being heterosexual, Chris, it's easy for me to put it in this light. Heterosexually I'm oriented to pursue the other sex. So my heterosexual orientation is that any gorgeous-looking lady can be sexually attractive. Now I have a choice in my behaviour. As a married man, adultery I do not believe is a good thing. BANKS: So does this mean gays and lesbians shouldn't actually act on the feelings that they have, and this is bad? SAX: Not necessarily. I'm not trying to be judgmental and suggest that. I'm just giving you the analogy, a heterosexual example. So if I go and have relationships with multiple women up and down the street, it's most likely going to destroy my commitment, my pledge to my wife. And going to damage my children. Almost certainly, that's going to be the outcome. "I'M A BUSINESSMAN, I'M NOT A SOCIAL SCIENTIST, AND AS A BUSINESSMAN YOU TRY TO LOOK AT THINGS OBJECTIVELY... READING THOSE DOCUMENTS, MY GOLLY, THEY'RE TEDIOUS... YOU HAVE TO GENERALISE" BANKS: In the arguments you've put forth in [the anti-Civil Unions] letter you put all gay and lesbian relationships into the same pot. SAX: No I don't think so, Chris, I think that's reading the wrong thing into it. BANKS: By saying we can't have a Civil Union Bill, that means gays and lesbians don't have the chance to formalise their relationships and be protected under the law in the same way that heterosexuals can. Which in effect, is condemning them to the same type of uncommitted defacto relationships which you say are so bad. SAX: Yes they are. If you look at the stats, they are. BANKS: So you do you see that by not having some sort of formal institution available, gays and lesbians are being uniformly pushed into that pot? SAX: I can see what you're saying, Chris, and really my focus isn't on that. BANKS: But you didn't specifically exclude gays... SAX: No we didn't explicitly exclude the solo mothers and solo dads... BANKS: But you've included gay unions... SAX: I think rightly so. I think we have to include, because when you look at the social science, Chris, you have to include, you have to say...you see, I'm a businessman, I'm not a social scientist. And as a businessman, you try to look at things objectively. Reading those documents, I don't know what your background is Chris, but reading those documents (laughs) my golly, they're tedious. So at the end of the day, you've got to generalise. Because if you are specific on individuals, that would be quite wrong. BANKS: If you're generalising from questionable research then you start to run into problems. The Whelan studies you used aren't even peer-reviewed. SAX: They're only one bit of it, but they all say basically the same thing globally. And I think in the civil union debate I said let's not pick over failure, if we've got a generalisation which says this doesn't work. "YOU CAN GO DOWN THE TO THE STREET CORNER LAWYER AND SIGN WHATEVER AGREEMENT YOU WISH BETWEEN YOURSELVES, AS ANYONE CAN, HETEROSEXUAL, HOMOSEXUAL..." BANKS: Would you have a problem with the Civil Union Bill if it had nothing to do with defacto relationships? If it was only for same-sex couples? SAX: Same-sex and nothing else? My question is then, why have it? If you want to marginalise other groups, if you're going to exclude other unions I'm just wondering what the logic and the fairness would be. BANKS: What other unions? SAX: If you're saying that we should have a bill for same-sex, and not have any recognition and let the solo mums and live-in boyfriends or defacto short term long term, sink or swim and get some legislation for themselves? BANKS: Well they can get married. SAX: Oh absolutely. Yeah. If they want to. They've got a choice. BANKS: Gays and lesbians have no choice at all. Which is the purpose of the Civil Union Bill. SAX: (sighs) I think what you need to do, Chris, if you look at the people I've spoken to, as I've said I haven't got too involved in really trying to, the problems I've heard from the gay folk I know, there's nothing to stop anyone cementing those relationships in law as of right. There is nothing to stop every single short-term defacto whatever relationship it is... BANKS: Where did you source that information? There is nothing same-sex couples can do which is akin to what is provided for you as soon as walk down to your local registry office and sign a marriage certificate. There's nothing comparable to that. SAX: So if you say what things are missing, Chris, if you just took me through that, I haven't carefully looked at that. The main ones that I've talked about and property rights that people have mentioned to me, well that's a nonsense you can go down the corner legal, street corner, and sign whatever agreement you wish between yourselves, as anyone can, heterosexual, homosexual... BANKS: If that's the case and there's no reason for same-sex couples to have access to an institution like civil unions or marriage, why don't we just repeal the Marriage Act? It obviously has no practical effect. If there's no discrimination against same-sex couples without it, it must be true of heterosexual couples also. SAX: That's an interesting proposition Chris (laughs). I've never thought of it that way. I guess the Marriage Act doesn't get repealed because people in the bulk of the community are probably very happy with it. But if you said lets repeal the Marriage Act and let people enter into a contract themselves, I personally don't have a problem with that, because increasingly that is happening. The heterosexual community is using many of those type of contracts... BANKS: They don't have to, do they? They just go get married. SAX: Well that's true. They don't have to. And if they go get married, then the statutes, if they do nothing else, will dictate to them. So the state will dictate to them what the deal is in respect to property rights. But frankly, Chris, this is all a bit of diversion... THE SAX-MAXIM CONNECTION BANKS: A great deal of the stuff we've been discussing, the tone and language of the debate is very similar to stuff we've been hearing from the [anti-gay] Maxim Institute. So I have to ask what connections you have with them, or any of their staff? SAX: I know some of the people there. The few people I've met from there are good people. Very sincere people. I think, very concerned about, probably come from a different bias partly to what I do... BANKS: Who do you know there? SAX: I've met [managing director] Greg Fleming a number of times. I've met [communications director] Scott McMurray. And I've met another person there who I don't think is there any longer... [Editor's note: Greg Fleming is the former director of Parenting With Confidence, an organisation now headed by Ian Grant – another signatory of the Sax letter] BANKS: Did they assist you in compiling your research? SAX: No, um, I think we got one bit of research out of Christchurch from Maxim. And, uh, no I did completely...we didn't go to Maxim and all and say hey help me put some research together. There's a study I was aware of in Christchurch, a longitudinal study, which was actually reported in there, and we couldn't find it. We went to the Ministry of Social Development, they couldn't find it, we went to the libraries, we couldn't find it, so we talked to someone at Maxim in Christchurch and said do you know the reference for this and we utilised that. BANKS: So did they give you pointers to any organisations overseas? SAX: No we did that, uh, I did that all totally myself. "WHY DO GAYS WANT IT TO BE THE SAME AS MARRIAGE? WHY DO THEY WANT THE SAME RESPONSIBILITIES? I ASK YOU THE QUESTION." SAX: All the other reports [on same-sex parenting] I've read, they include in their study 25 lesbian couples, 38 single solo mums heterosexual, and 38 heterosexual families...to me I wouldn't even bother reporting on that. 25-38 from a science point of view is almost irrelevant. Secondly, it was just talking about the emotional damage or damaged children, or with psychological problems by the age of 12. Well, to me, big deal. It's such a trivial number of people on the planet it's not even worth calling science in my view. Secondly, if people have emotional problems at the age of 12, well big deal. Does that make them rapists, murderers, extremely violent – I don't know! And unless you looked at those kids again in another ten years, twenty years, and said hey by the way, there is no adjustment in process occurred, and this is the outcome of those children, then I'll say hang on, no damn good. We've got a problem there. Editor's note: These criticisms of research on same-sex parenting mirror those made by Alexis Stuart, writer for Maxim, in her recent opinion piece for the Herald. BANKS: So what you're saying is there's such a small number of children being parented by gay couples its not really a significant issue? SAX: That's a fair summary of the position that I think everyone that signed that letter's taken. BANKS: Knowing that then, and knowing that most gay couples don't have children, what was the basis of the opposition to the Civil Union Bill as regards children, because [by the logic you've just agreed with] the two things have nothing to do with each other? SAX: Well they actually do Chris. It's not so much the Civil Union Bill but the intended Relationships Bill... BANKS: So really the letter should have been addressing the Relationships Bill and not the Civil Union Bill? SAX: Well, the Civil Union Bill in isolation is almost a meaningless document in my view. BANKS: As the Marriage Act would be then. SAX: No the Marriage Act is not a meaningless document. It's a very comprehensive document. BANKS: They're precisely the same. All the Marriage Act does is form a legal registration system. SAX: Well, the Civil Union, unless there's a regularising into the Relationships Bill, then into all the other, what did someone say, there's a hundred other bits of legislation that have to be changed, of the Civil Union Bill to have the same effect... if that is the intended outcome of normalising all forms of relationships then I think that's an inherent problem for our kids. BANKS: How is it normalising all forms of relationships? It's just giving another form of relationship, i.e. same-sex couples, legal recognition that's been denied? SAX: Well the Civil Union Bill is not just same-sex couples, Chris, it's available to all forms... BANKS: You mean to heterosexual couples also? SAX: Absolutely. It's not a gay bill, it's another form of legislation with the intention to, that comes right back to your statement earlier, should we as a community discriminate between different types of relationships? I absolutely believe we should. And in fact I believe we must, and we must foster what has the prospects of good outcomes as opposed to bad outcomes. BANKS: So what you're saying is, heterosexual couples should still be allowed to marry... SAX: Yes. BANKS: But same-sex couples should have nothing at all? Absolutely nothing? SAX: [annoyed] No, look, same-sex couples can if they want to....if they want to address and focus on the issues that are relevant to them, I have no issue with that. If they want to go down to the local lawyer now, I have no issue with that... BANKS: It's not the same. That's the point. SAX: But why do they want it to be the same as marriage? Why do they want the same responsibilities? I ask you the question. "IF IT IS INTENDED THAT EVERY SAME RIGHT, TITLE, ETC. SHOULD BE AVAILABLE FOR ALL, I JUST SIMPLY SAY THAT IS WRONG" SAX: I think if you go back to the macro picture, I just really come back to the family. BANKS: I'm from a family. SAX: Absolutely. So am I. And so, I'm concerned that we encourage, foster, nurture the best possible outcomes for the children of New Zealand. That's it. And the debate has to centre round that. And if live-in boyfriends are damaging... BANKS: So what does the Civil Union Bill have to do with that? I still don't understand. What do same-sex relationships and civil unions have to do with children? SAX: Because, well, I assume what the intention is, if it flows all the way through, and I understand that is the intention of it, is that every form of relationship under statute therefore must have the same status. So there must be the same status given to short term long term defacto, live-in boyfriends, gay etc, and when you look at the social science at this stage in humanity, the outcomes are lousy. And so we must actively discourage – and really this is child raising, child bearing, child upbringing – we must discourage solo motherhood, we must discourage de facto, we must discourage live in boyfriends... BANKS: And discourage same-sex relationships? SAX: Absolutely. Yeah. BANKS: Why? SAX: If it is intended that every same right, title, etc should be available for all, I just simply say that is wrong. GayNZ.com - and our readers no doubt - would appreciate feedback on John Sax from any of the gay people he mentioned in this interview. Chris Banks - 5th January 2005