National's Murray McCully made a vacuous attack on the inclusion of a young gay couple in a recent STI/HIV health promotion campaign in a recent online newsletter. What was he thinking? One, New Zealand's age of consent has been sixteen for heterosexuals, lesbians and gays alike for the last eighteen years. Two, health promotion now is a prudent fiscal measure, as it means that adolescents will use condoms to protect themselves and not add to the public purse through pharmaceutical purchase and treatment costs, medical staff renumeration time and medical equipment wear, tear and replacement costs. Three, there's a problem with gay youth suicide in this country, so positive images of gay adolescent sexuality counter that. Four, those positive images will also help foster educational retention and higher education access through that validation process. Again, fiscal prudence- the kids won't end up in marginal jobs, or on the dole. Unfortunately for Muzza, his outburst indicates that the National Party is desperately looking for a new 'wedge strategy,' given Don Brash's much-vaunted anti-welfare speech went down like a wet balloon last month. I don't know what makes him think that antigay social conservatism is that strategy. Look at last year's polls. National's 'Orewa Effect' was sabotaged when its disproportionately social conservative caucus started to give free rein to United Future imitations, and its nadir was last December, when the government opened up a twelve point lead- and National voted en masse against the Civil Union Bill's final reading. If anything, Christian Right homophobia played its usual spoiler role for the centre-right. If Muzza was the architect of that antigay strategy, it obviously didn't work then. In fact, it bit the National Party on its rather prominent backside. The public is blase about civil unions, and accepts them as long as the M word isn't used. If it continues down this path, it's predictable what happens next. National is sidetracked into ranting and raving against LGBT rights, much to electorate displeasure. Labour uses the time to patch up its current woes over the NCEA and 111 debacles, and rebounds in the polls as a result. Meanwhile, the public is turned off by the likes of Tamaki and United Future all over again. As a result, the government lead increases and continues until the election. Why does Muzza think it's a good idea? It may be magical thinking. If the Australian Liberals and US Republicans can benefit from pandering to fundamentalist voters, then so can New Zealand's Nationals. There's just one slight problem here- unlike the aforementioned centre-right parties, New Zealand fundamentalists are raw and unprocessed. Apart from the Maxim Institute, they get bellicose, shrill and screech godtalk words like 'sodomy', 'perversion,' etc, while lacking focus and strategy. Simply using US Christian Right cribnotes, as they all do, isn't a strategy, it's indicative of their lack of domestic professional alliances and expertise. Moreover, they don't have social conservative business interests priming the pump for them, nor do they have a media and educational network of their own, as the US and Australian Christian Rights do. Because of these factors, the New Zealand Christian Right doesn't moderate its message, and it scares off sensible voters. Ironically, if there is a wedge, it may not be in their own interests- it may lead to disgusted social liberal departure from the National Party's electorate organisations and voter pool. I hate to pun this badly, but if they don't shut up Muzza, there'll be much election night blubber. Blubber Blubber. Blubber blubber... Recommended Reading: Marion Maddox: God Under Howard: The Rise of the Religious Right in Australian Politics: Sydney: Allen and Unwin: 2005. Craig Young - 18th February 2005