Rugby: It's Like Wholesome God Fearing Marriage in a Way

If you don't have time to read Bob McCroskie's compelling arguement against allowing gay people to marry, I'll sum it up for you.

http://bobmccoskrie.com/?p=5174

Heterosexual buttocks flex in a manly display of men in short shorts fighting over who gets to touch the ball.

Rugby is a game played by most boys in New Zealand in their childhood, though some don’t want to play it at all, in fact according to statistics NZ out of. A significant section of the community have always preferred to play a different sport, like soccer.

Fact: According to the 2001 NZ Census of the 847,740 people under the age of 15 only 118, 245 play rugby. Which means the majority of people must play soccer, and we all know that soccer is shorthand for gay.

Conclusion: Our kids today are experimenting with the love the dare not speak its name at an alarming rate. Family first demands that soccer be outlawed immediately.

But Rugby gets all the status in New Zealand, commanding all the respect. So much so that those who play soccer are often made to feel like second-class citizens. They lack the mana of those who play the nation’s revered game. Reliable studies show that this has statistically led to a higher degree of depression among soccer playing boys, and already our rate of male youth suicide is far too high.

Fact: Some people might suggest that bringing up youth suicide in such a flippant manner is a sign of a lack of empathy or basic human decency, but Family First wish to emphasise that they only treat people like second-class citizens and drive kids to suicide because rugby must be respected at all costs. Come on people, it's rugby!

To end this discrimination we have decided to redefine Rugby to include any sport involving two teams with a ball.

Fact: Gay Marriage Proponents want to redefine marriage as being between two people with an excess of balls or no balls at all. At Family First we're incredibly anxious that the right ball ratio be kept within the sacred and holy bounds of marriage. We fear if excess/lack of balls is allowed that this will lead to the sickness of hockey sticks and other sport paraphernalia entering into the bedrooms of New Zealand.

We should remember that rugby itself has historically undergone many changes. Once upon a time, there were only four points for a try and now there are five. There are eight in the scrum today instead of six in earlier times. Before you had to jump by yourself in the lineout and now you can be lifted. So the Rugby Union is happy to adjust and refine the definition of rugby throughout the ages– but for some reason they stop at soccer. That old boys’ club want to control the definition themselves because underneath, they really regard soccer players as wusses. But look at how they handled their own finances in Otago. And let’s never forget that once upon a time there were white Rugby Union teams in South Africa who refused to let black people be rugby players alongside them. Do we want to perpetuate the same kind of discrimination by denying that soccer is an equally legitimate form of rugby?

Fact: Rugby, sorry, marriage, has certainly gone through a lot of changes. Which would mean that if you thought of gay people as being, well people, that these changes could move to encompass them being welcomed into the fold of human beings that can now get married. Thank goodness they're just soccer people rather than people people otherwise this logic might be in trouble!

New Zealand has always prided itself on a clear separation between sport and politics, and in the 21st century our political system needs to be free from all forms of discrimination. We led the world in giving women the vote. Yet there are still those who are happy to bar the door to those who play sport differently. There is no point in having a referendum on the issue because of course most rugby-playing New Zealanders will want to defend their privileges and guard the status quo.

Fact: The Springbok tour was certainly a time to be proud of in our strident desire to keep politics and sport seperate. As a nation we all still feel that pride and know that we did the right thing by elevating a game of rugby over political considerations and human rights.

Some say that we have already achieved equality, when the national soccer team finally got called the “All Whites”. That was a step in the right direction, but it didn’t go far enough. Soccer players need the same access to the “All Black” name and jersey. It’s not good enough to call them “All Whites” when overseas everyone’s heard of the All Blacks. No one talks about the All Whites. It is time to embrace the right of all ball-playing New Zealanders to be regarded as rugby players, regardless of the shape of the ball they use and how they choose to handle it.

Fact: Family First also advocate that, like gay soccer players, white and black people must be kept seperate. A lot of research was done handling differently shaped balls to bring you this stunning display of logic.

BATNZ - It Worries and it Cares!

British and American Tobacco is really worried at the moment. Not about the people they're killing, or their profit margins, but about principles and the law. See, all they're concerned about is that their copyright is protected, not that once the mystique is gone from the years they've spent up building up their brands that their product will be reduced to what it actually is, a pack of paper tubes stuffed with an addictive substance that will make you ill and shorten your lifespan. That would be crazy talk.

From their website:

We are strongly opposed to the plain packaging of tobacco products and call on the Government to reject the proposal. Below is an overview of why.

There’s no proof that plain packaging would reduce smoking rates in New Zealand.
Absolutely! That's why they're spending hundreds and thousands of dollars fighting this because they don't want something that may not work being implemented. They want to make sure that whatever comes into force has been proven to reduce demand of their product, that's just logical. And after all, if something hasn't been proven it should never be done and the cultural and social evolution of humankind must be immediately ground to a halt.

Intellectual property is one of the most valuable assets of any business. Our brands are our intellectual property, which we have created and in which we have invested. Plain packaging would deprive us of the right to use our brands.
First of all, while studies have shown links between tobacco and brain damage, they're not talking about that kind of intellectual property, they're talking about the legal right of ownership to a brand by a company, and we all know that things are more important than people. We must protect brands because without them what kind of world would we live in? Not one that I want to be in, that's for sure.

Plain packaging would infringe New Zealand’s international obligations, damage its strong trading reputation and expose the country to legal challenges.
The tobacco industry doesn't WANT to hit us, you've got to understand that baby, but the way you're acting, with your parliamentary supremacy and your laws, you're giving them no choice. It's not them, it's us, and they will legal challenge us even though they don't want to because we've got to see reason. They will be crying while they legally challenge us around the courtroom, and I hope you're happy.

Plain packaging would make packs easier to counterfeit. A growth in the illegal market would reduce the Government’s excise revenue, expose New Zealand consumers to cheap, low quality, unregulated tobacco products, and fuel a rise in criminal activity.
You've got to agree, that is incredibly refreshing to see Big Business concerned about the taxation revenue stream to Government (is that an offer to pay more I detect? SO nice!), but that they're also worried that smokers will get a product that is cheap and low quality which would, I don't know, make them sick? Kill them? They are simply worried for us, can't we understand that?

If plain packaging is implemented, adult consumers would no longer have the freedom to choose based on branding. This could force the industry to compete on price, making cigarettes more affordable and frustrating the stated aim of plain packaging.
This isn't a company worried about market share, this is a company wanting to make sure that fundamental basic liberties, including freedom of choice, are kept. From here on in nicotine and other addictive substances will be removed from their product so that smokers will now have the true freedom of choice whether to stop smoking or not. Just kidding!

Australia is the only country to have passed plain packaging legislation. Other countries, such as Canada, have looked at plain packaging and decided not to introduce the measure.
I like this. Going for the competitive country angle. Who do you want to be more like, New Zealand? Australia or Canada? ONE OF THESE COUNTRIES ONCE BOWLED UNDERARM IN A GAME OF CRICKET. I rest my case.

We have invested in our brands over many years and have a responsibility to our shareholders to do everything we can to defend our right to use them.
See, again? Worried about everyone else but themselves. Take a second to worry about the shareholders, these poor people who put their money in to tobacco, just wanted to profit off an industry that causes the premature deaths of half their users. Those poor shareholding bastards.

Plain packaging, once introduced, is unlikely to be limited to tobacco products. Which products will be next?
GAY MARRIAGE! D: Sorry, I got my slippery slope fear arguments mixed up. It'll probably be medicine for babies in plain packaging and medications will get mixed up and thousands of NZ babies will die. And it all started here, folks. They warned us, but did we listen? What will we tell our grandchildren. Oh, right, we just killed them all by putting cigarettes into plain packaging.

Sacrifices and Priorities

I'm sure due to the careers that John Key has had that his son has not seen him as much as he might like. I'm sure that's true for many families out there, especially the ones that are pulling down more than one job trying to scrape by. I'm sure there were also advantages of growing up in that household, including going to the best schools, living in a mansion in a good area, holidaying at the families bach in Hawaii, and being able to attend baseball games overseas. That was me being bitchy, I thought I should point that out.

Key said that he will attend his sons baseball game in America and will not go to the funeral of the soldiers killed in action because his son has made so many sacrifices. I can't think of a more inappropriate or insensitive remark to make under the circumstances.

It's not like we have a huge contingent stationed out in Afghanistan, and it's not like we've had huge loses. So when there is a loss it resonates. We know that because in 2010 Key left a trade mission to come back to NZ to attend the funeral of three fallen soldiers. Key put aside business dealings because it was the right thing to do.

Those soldiers are employed by this country and as part of their job description gave up their lives; it is only fitting that Key, as leader of this country, showed up to show his respects and to represent us at those funerals. His political decisions put those two soldiers in a situation where they gave up their lives for this country, at the very least he could pay them and their families the respect of being there at the end.

Yes, missing out on a child's sporting event, even an important sporting event, is hard for any parent. But there is a certain degree of responsibility and weight to the position he holds. He interrupted a business trip under the same circumstances, but wont interrupt a personal one. That's not only a case of a glaring lack of priorities on his part, but is also, in my opinion, a sad indictment of his character.

Family First, Dictionaries Never

Family First, and First Family, and Family Family First First have launched a website to protect the current definition of marriage. The current definition, according to Collins dictionary:

noun

1. the state or relationship of living together in a legal partnership
2. 1. the legal union or contract made by two people to live together
   2. (as modifier) ⇒ marriage licence, marriage certificate
3. the religious or legal ceremony formalizing this union; wedding
4. a close or intimate union, relationship, etc ⇒ a marriage of ideas
5. (in certain card games, such as bezique, pinochle) the king and queen of the same suit

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/marriage

Websters define it as:

1

a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage <same-sex marriage> b : the mutual relation of married persons : wedlock c : the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage

2

: an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected; especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities

3

: an intimate or close union <the marriage of painting and poetry — J. T. Shawcross>

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marriage

So basically dictionaries aren't being 'attacked by twink' and the definition is in no way being changed, because unless you're taking a solely fundo-Christian Western view of marriage in this time and place, the definition of marriage for human beings have included a multiple of different arrangements, including more than two people and sometimes even same sex. All Family First have succeeded in doing is showing that the only book they've picked up is the Bible (selective reading only) and are completely ignorant of  human history.

They say the state didn't invent marriage. That's because they think their god did and now want to use legislation to push their religious agenda. Last time I look I wasn't living in a religious fundamentalist state, and quite frankly I would like to continue this - that's one tradition I'm quite keen on.They also say that the state doesn't have authority to reinvent...what? The law? Because I'm pretty sure it does, unless they believe laws can only come down on stone tablets.

McCoskrie also trots out again the old tired slippery slope argument: if we allow same-sex marriage we'll have to allow everything. Yes, because every time we modify a law even a teensy bit society goes on a bender of excess and collapses. Okay, lets ban marriage altogether then and shut that door closed since it's a gateway drug to social depravity.

“Almost every culture in every time and place has had some institution that resembles what we know as marriage, and it has always been associated with procreation. Every society needs natural marriage. Nature also discriminates against same-sex couples. Same-sex couples cannot have children. Only a man and a woman can produce children. This discloses something of the purposes and providence of nature, and the role and purpose of marriage.”

Family First have essentially just said that every marriage between people where one or more are infertile, where a decision has been made to not have kids,  those marriage have no purpose since procreation will not happen. Has anyone also sat them down and explained that there are a number of people on the planet today that were born outside of marriage, or that gay couples can raise children? Some men and women can't produce children, and some men and women shouldn't. Maybe they could have a test before getting a wedding license; you must be this fertile to marry. At least their wedding vows must be short: I'm marrying you to have kids - kiss the bride!

“We would encourage politicians to spend their valuable time focussing on important issues such as family poverty, negotiating our way through the world recession, child abuse, and getting people employed – rather than taking to the dictionary with a twink bottle,” says Mr McCoskrie.
 
I would encourage religious fanatics to spend their valuable time focussing on important issues such as screaming their message from street corners, arm waving and pointing dramatically, printing off scripture and shoving it in to the hands of startled passersby and practising penmanship for The End is Near signs - rather than wasting everyone's times with coming up with arguements that are little more than 'I think about gay people constantly, am completely obsessed, and they make my pants feel funny'.


ENDS

May the Fourth Estate Be With You

The state of our media in New Zealand gets quite a pasting within some areas, and for good reason because it's a little bit shit. It tells us what is happening (if there are attention grabbing pictures or video to accompany it), with the mandatory explosions, people sobbing, gorillas cuddling kittens etc, but fails to give us the requisite context and background to make any real sense of why it's happening. Dammit, sometimes I want to know why the gorilla is cuddling Mr Boots, and how many kittens they went through to get that simply adorable shot.

There's no surprises why this is happened. Journalism is business. It's about revenue generation in a time where getting peoples attention is harder and harder. While you're reading this for free you could instead have nipped out and bought a newspaper. My god, you killed print journalism. You bastard.

Before railing against the journalists though don't forget they're required to churn out x number of stories a day, and when you've got those restraints around you, and you're under resourced because regional stations have been shut down and the fax machine was traded in for wine, you just don't have the luxury of time to be reflective. There are more people working in public relations than journalism, and if someone hands over pre-prepared pr release it must be pretty tempting to just slip it into the pile, unless you want to speed dial the requisite 'experts' who come up with wildly differing accounts, no narrative is given, and bang, you've got a story and a public that is not necessarily any the wiser.

Another point is that unless you're Paul's Henry and Holmes, or were the Mother of Our Nation (cue: Angel's singing) the pay scale for ground floor journalists are pathetic. We're talking 30k pathetic1. We shouldn't berate them, we should sponsor them.

One of the reasons that people were so upset about the death of publicly funded TVNZ 7 was because it could mean news where the focus could be on delivering just that, instead of profit. Less sensationalist murder trials and celebrity gossip and more depth and analysis. Treating the viewer as if they were an adult instead of an attention deficit deprived child who needs items that are there to appeal to emotions instead of intellect. Questioning politicians about their policies and their reasons for them, instead of most of our political news being dedicated to scandals and whether they're Nice People (sometimes I wonder how interested some of our political commentators are in politics. Not very, or they think we're not, is the conclusion I've come to).

The private model where news is sponsored by business and where it's dumbed down so far that sports, human interest, weather and ads are the sheer bulk of the hour, is not doing us any favours. If we're not informed (and we're not) democracy is just a popularity contest where we get to select our three-year mini dictator of choice.

The Fourth Estate has become the 3 1/4 Housing Development.

1. http://www.careers.govt.nz/default.aspx?id0=60103&id1=j32331

2. There is good media to be found: Backbenchers, Media 7, Native Affairs...but it's not exactly mainstream.

Sir Bob Jones: I don't particularly care for your sort

As a boy I was taken for my annual trip to view the working class at the A&P show in Upper Hutt. Mama feigned an interest in the peasants parading around and insisted I do likewise, she deeming this "educational". “Look young Sir Bob,” she’d say. “Look at the quaint lower classes wearing man made synthetics and under enunciating their vowels. If you don’t eat your vegetables you’ll become one of these sad creatures.” After that I never refused an offering of brussel spouts again.

But my attention was focused longingly on the out-of-bounds carnival clamour at the park end, though my mother dismissed it as being for people of low-breeding. Instead we stood around looking at cows and horses while the sounds of the carnival and the laughter of children played out in the background. I think that day was behind the start of my hatred for the poor, and Ferris wheels.

One year, I escaped and ventured into this forbidden wonderland of wickedness. There were dodgems, rides and candyfloss vendors but I was drawn to the freak shows, because even as I child I loved to point and laugh at those different to myself. Today they're considered tasteless, but more pertinent, the freaks I saw are now the norm. Arguably this would then mean that they were no longer freaks, but I do love a good put down, and I refuse to move with the times for I am old and rich and therefore, like all other things, the times should move for me.

The two absolute "musts" in those yesteryear freak shows were the fat lady and the tattooed man. I paid my sixpences and gazed awe-struck at a negligee-clad woman who today would be considered almost anorexic, and then at the tattooed man, marvelling at such inane self-abuse. A fat woman and a man with tattoos, how shocking gentle reader. The best sixpences I ever spent, aside from later that day when I paid a homeless man to eat excrement. How my school chums and I did laugh heartily as he retched between his pathetic sobs.

Most fat people are young women. Statistics New Zealand refutes this, but since the other groups are not one in which my eyes wish to survey, this is the group that I will muse on. Truly, is there nothing more abhorrent, revolting, than a filly that has let herself go whereby stallions like myself no longer wish to mount them. A women’s place is to be objectified, and if she is no longer an object, then her purpose no longer exists. Furthermore, these fat women, these mountainous super tankers, might fall on me, on you, on our children, and kill us all. Some might suggest that my mocking is indicative of sociopathic tendencies, but they are mistaken, it is as a public service before someone is killed.

Being rich, and often bored, I hired out a store where I advertised a freak show which had within it a slim woman and an untattooed man. Wasn’t that clever of me, highlighting that I feel not enough women are the weight that I find desirable, and that I don’t like tattoos. Also the girl was both slim and pretty and as a Bulgarian this was amazing since Bulgarian women are ugly (we haven’t been included in international media since the Finland incident, just doing my bit for New Zealand tourism).

Then shrieking feminists came to complain, as they do, which surely is as disgusting as fat, ugly woman, with their short hair and unflattering outfits. I like Chinese women; they’re slim, though those ladies do love their shopping. I can hear those carnival sounds in the background of my mind, taunting me, twisting my heart as my compassion leaks from it, puddling around my ankles, like the tears of that homeless man. Fat women. I wake in a cold sweat. Where was I?

In my day there weren’t very many fatties. Now lots of people are fat, and by people I mean women, though they barely can be considered as such.

But can you imagine a dumber government action than that now proposed in England, namely to criminalise mocking the obese, in line with racial and sexual discrimination laws? Treating fat people with respect and dignity? What’s next, racial minorities? Not on my watch.

These human hippos are self made and ridicule may inspire them to unmake their degrading situation. This is why I hired another empty store (I was again bored, still rich) and am opening the Sir Bob Jones Slimming Academy for Women (No Feminists, Thanks) where I shall judge and mock these blubberous monsters until they get their act together and are once again pleasing to my eyes.

This is why you need us higher classes, to sort you lower class lot out. And do we get any thanks, no, just knighthoods and more money than we could ever spend. You make me as sick as a fat woman should be.

Actual Article: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10815435

Ranty Hate Post and Kitten Punching

Because I am a small and petty person, these are the things that annoy me:

People who walk: for the love of all that's holy, if you're sharing a footpath with other people walk to the same side that the cars drive on. If you live in NZ, walk on the left hand side. If you move to America, walk on the right hand side. This cunning scheme has been designed so that you're less likely to walk into me because you're too busy texting to see what's in front of you. Same goes for the stairs. You suck, stop it.

People who are polite: look, it's great that you want to be polite, but not when that politeness is tied in an idea that my gender means that I need to get on the bus first in case I spontaneously burst into my menstrual cycle and faint from prolonged standing on my lady legs, because then are you really being polite?

The rule is that I just made up now: unless someone has a physical condition which means it would be courteous to let them grab a seat before the bus lurches off flinging them around the seats like a pinball, the first person at the bus stop is the first person to get on the bus. You angrily insisting that I get on the bus before you is creepy (and I've had this happen on more than one occasion by men who will only wave on women before them and then shoulder block other men) - I am more than willing to give up going through doors first or getting on a bus first if it means that I get to also be treated equally in other spheres of social life. It's not the act itself, it's the (sometimes unthinking) thought process behind it that's the problem. I have seen men argue that women want it both ways - eh, I can pull out my own seat thanks if it means that I get treated like an adult. (If a boat sinks I'm going to be on the first lifeboat tripping children out of my way - that isn't double standards, that's Darwinian survival.)

People who spoil: we all know what the most important thing in life is, it's television. If someone is a spoiler phobe, and you're aware they don't want to know what's going to happen, for the love of all that's good and beautiful, stop talking! Hint: saying the next episode made you cry, had an unexpected twist, was disappointing...are all spoilers! What, you think the person is so dumb that can't work out what's going to happen from what you've just said? Some people take television seriously, and while obviously I'm not that kind of loony, the next person who spoils me will be killed along with everyone they have ever loved or known. You are the worst person to have walked the earth. How dare you.

People who review 'Girls': so there's a new programme that's come out where the four main characters are all females and it's written from a female viewpoi...and yeah, I'll stop there because the only talking point about this programme has been about what the actresses look like. The treatment of this programme by the media at large has been gross and disturbing. A programme that was supposedly about what women have to say got turned by reviewers into a programme about what women look like, because that's all that matters.

People who think women can't be funny:  your mother! What? I don't know. I couldn't come up with a come back. While I'm at it, can we give the rape jokes a rest? It's mostly male comedians, who belong to the group most likely to commit rape and not be directly affected by it, making fun out of rape victims, who are most likely women. That's not edgy, that's just reaffirming the status quo.

People who use the term 'politically correct': it's a classic douchebag move to try and shut down an arguement. Who needs to think when you have a meaningless phrase, amiright? People asking for respect, dignity and self-determination?! Politically correct assholes.

People who think their religion should be legislated for: do you think being gay is an abomination against god and abortion kills babies because cells have souls? Don't have sex with someone of the same gender and don't nip off to an abortion clinic (one may not lead to the other). But when you try to legislate your religious beliefs for wider society, that's a step too far, ie. I don't hate your stupidity, whether you were born stupid or you choose to be stupid, but I hate it when you try to force your stupidity on to others. Keep your stupidity in the bedroom where we don't have to see it.

Kittens: I wanna punch their screwed up tiny purry big-eyed cutesy faces. Pow, right in the whiskers.