In this month's Metro, Gilbert Wong has written an excellent article about Aucklander John Sax' shadowy For the Sake of Our Children Trust. I decided to do some background research on the organisation. According to Wong, Sax is an entrepreneur and fundamentalist Christian activist. We know him best as a lobbyist against the Civil Union Act and against the Labour-led government's re-election. He is an amateur activist. His trust seems to consist of well-meaning people without the slightest actual experience in pediatrics or developmental psychology. Its backers include TV3 sportscaster Howard Dobson, ex-AB Stu Wilson, TV3 fisherbloke Graeme Sinclair, PI Julia Hartley-Moore, Steve Gurney (triathlete)...Alan Duff, Muriel Newman, Ian Grant and Bernard and Annetta Moran. I'm sure that most of the above think this is a worthy philanthropy. If it was only about child welfare, health and wellbeing, I'd agree. Duff, Newman, Grant and the Morans have much shadier reps, though. Duff is a conservative Maori author who whinged about disability, lesbian and gay rights and same-sex parenting and then excused it by whining about 'political correctness.' Newman is an ex-ACT List MP, and is up to her old tricks again. As for the Morans, Bernard Moran is a veteran antiabortion activist, editor of the antiabortion Pro-Life Times and "journalist" for Ian Wishart's tragic tabloid gutter glossy, Investigate.Annetta is an antiabortion activist and was involved with the defunct Women for Life/Family Education Network antifeminist group. Ian Grant is associated with Parents Inc, formerly Parenting With Confidence. In the mid-nineties, his wife Mary Grant ran "Campaign for our Children," an anti-Hero group. Sax notes that we went ballistic about the content of his smear letter against same-sex parenting, at the closing stages of the passage of the Civil Union Act. Given that it was full of lies from mendacious discredited junk social scientist Paul Cameron, we were right to raise objections. Sax fumes that Auckland Mayor Dick Hubbard rescinded his support for the letter, when he found he'd been duped. What other connections does Sax have? Wong tells us that he also backed Tammy Bruce, the strange right-wing lesbian conspiracy theorist and talkback host, and provides office space to Vision New Zealand, the fundamentalist lobby group. On visiting their website, I spotted three other Christian Right pressure groups in their links section- Family Life International (conservative Catholics), Focus on the Family New Zealand and the aforementioned Parents Inc. Since his attacks on same-sex parenting fell flat, Sax has been bashing solo mums, courtesy of an article from the social conservative US Heritage Foundation. Unsurprisingly, most qualified mainstream New Zealand child health and welfare authorities reject this, and I suspect certainly none would argue that the attacks apply to same-sex parenting and families. For a disciplined astute businessman, Sax shows incredible naivety and strategic bewilderment in citing the likes of Paul Cameron, showing his location in the pits of Christian Right junk social science. Wong's excellent article- and the Trust website -indicates that this organisation is yet another stealth job. Let's keep an eye on it. Recommended Reading: Gilbert Wong: "The Moralist" Metro 293 November 2005: 66-69. Named Christian Right Pressure Groups: http://www.forourchildren.co.nz/index.html For the Sake of Our Children Trust. http://www.family.org.nz Focus on the Family New Zealand http://www.fli.org.nz Family Life International http://www.parentsinc.org.nz Parents Inc. http://www.vision.org.nz Vision New Zealand http://www.familyresarchinst.org Paul Cameron's "Family Research Institute" Rebuttal (Same Sex Parenting): Judith Stacey and Tim Biblarz: "How Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?" American Sociological Review: 68:2: (April 2001): 159-183. Craig Young - 4th November 2005