National's alleged anti-"PC" spokesbigot, Wayne Mapp, is actually pandering to social conservative ideological purists ('skippies') as the real thought police. I mean, one needs only read the National Business Review to ascertain Mapp's targets. Since the Stagecoach decision ten years ago, inadequate access has been a constant nuisance for physically disabled transport users. I'm surprised that the disability rights movement hasn't gone after insurance discrimination, actually. Given the proportion of disability discrimination cases before the HRC, Mapp may have alienated a significant proportion of potential voters. And civil unions. And brothel zoning. And forcing pregnant incest survivors to tell their paternal rapists about their pregnancy or abortion plans (aka "parental notification"), which the New Zealand Medical Association and Royal College of General Practitioners oppose on sound reproductive medicine-based evidential grounds. To be blunt, it sounds like a Christian Right wish-list. If anyone's being pandered to, it's fundamentalist Christians. What right do these ignorant sectarian zealots have to force the rest of us to live according to their rules, particularly when they ignore growing evidence of corruption, deception and sexual abuse within their own ranks? Unfortunately, I suspect the government won't retaliate by appointing a 'skippy culling' spokesperson of their own. Not a bad idea, though. A 'skippy culling' spokesperson would go through legislation removing evidence of pandering to fringe unrepresentative fundamentalist pressure groups. The SPCS would be unable to attempt sabotage of film festivals through vexatious OFLC appeals. "Intelligent design" and "abstinence education" junk science would be replaced by Darwinian and comprehensive sex education, which is at least evidence-based. Local authorities would be forbidden from spending ratepayers money on efforts by opponents of prostitution law reform trying to sabotage the decriminalisation of sex work. Christian Right advocates of citizens initiated referenda would be forced to resort to financial transparency when they undertook white elephants like the failed petition against prostitution law reform. If predatory religious groups wanted to make financial donations to rightist political parties, there'd be greater transparency. And why do we still have blasphemy laws, which confer special rights on those of Christian persuasion, particularly given that even the Maxim Institute admits that it's an attack on freedom of expression? Of course, National won't attack these would-be thought police. Why? Recommended Reading: National: http://www.national.org.nz NZ Association of Rationalists and Humanists: http://www.nzarh.org.nz Craig Young - 2nd November 2005