Sunday’s soapbox is yours to use as you will – within the bounds of decency and absence of defamation.
You’re welcome to look back or forward, discuss issues of the moment, to pontificate, ponder or point us to something of interest, to educate, elucidate or entertain, to muse or amuse.
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They are going to have to bury the mortal remains of Richard III.
Where and how – grab some popcorn.
Personally I think Cristina Odone is 100% correct in this but it wont happen in modern secular Britain, he’ll get a grotesque multi faith thing complete with women in vestments and quite possibly muslim and jewish religious leaders all playing their parts
This is how you rebury the victims of regicide, though this wouldn’t be appropriate for poor old Richard -\
Latin rather than Church Slavonic and a requiem mass would be the way to go.
Biggest mistake I ever made when casting my vote was in 2008 when I voted for National.
Never again they are just another worthless party that pander to interest groups that smear their feces over everything that is good and wholesome and decent like families.
Families who struggle to bring up their kids in the face of a degraded and to put it bluntly vile culture which worships above all else sexual hedonism and the worship of self over duty and responsibility to others.
Anyway here is John Key is again cavorting with the hedonists and pandering to their whims for gay “marriage” in order to gain some brownie points with this so called “community” while the decent folk who get up early every morning to work to put food in their children’s mouths, a roof over their heads and clothes on their backs get mocked, their wages garnished for tax to help fund all sorts of crap along with gay pride parades to for the hedonists to prothelytise their pagan religion to the young.
I’d be ashamed to be a member of the National party – ASHAMED and EMBARRASSED to be associated with that group of panderers
Gay people work hard and pay taxes too, Andrei. A gay couple showed us a great deal of compassion in 2012. I’ve no more say on what they do in the privacy of their own home than on the activities of a heterosexual couple in theirs.
Everything you say is true Tracey
And for me, almost a libertarian in belief, the idea that the Government should have any say in what happens in the nations bedrooms fills me with horror.
I believe the Government has overstepped it bounds in many areas for example not allowing a bar or resteraunt owner to decide whether or not people are allowed to smoke in his or her establishment is an example of a Government out of control.
But it is a question of what we as a nation value and hold up as an exempla of how to be in this world
And it is my firm belief, based upon my own experiences in life and observations that the best chance my children have for happiness in life over the long run is to marry well and raise children.
And that this holds for the vast majority of people, most of whom will not reach the dizzying heights of being a TV personality, nor List MP, nor supreme court judge but wil have to do the drudge work that keeps the world turning – and for these the motivation to keep on going even will be found in their families as will their satisfaction and sense of fulfilment.
Hetrosexual marriage is life giving and life sustaining – if you read accounts of the event to which I refer a great concern of these people is disease and its avoidence – a disease which the chance of me or mine contracting is orders of magnitude lower than of any of us winning lotto twice – What does that tell you?
What people do is of their own concern but we don’t need to idolize it and nor should we protect it from criticism by trying to normalize it
We are facing the abyss as the population ages – its probably too late to turn this round now but we need to try and the only way is to encourage the “boring” domesticity of husband,wife, three kids and a dog,
And what John Key did today is sending exactly the opposite message
Gay marriage is something that I don’t feel strongly about either for or against. Although it is hard not to feel sad for the parents of gay adults who sometimes can’t promise any grandchildren. But that is another issue. No one has to be married to have a child. If gay couples are capable of being good parents then they should be able to be, including adoption. You might disagree, but you would have to admit that there are some terrible heterosexual mother/father couples and single parents out there. Many more I would suspect than there are terrible gay parents.
There is recognition of the importance of families from the government. Here is one example:
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/172360/ece-reassurances-consultation-ends
While there are plenty of articles published online about the proposals of the taskforce which would have downgraded Playcentres for funding purposes, you know I can’t find one which actually reports the final (positive) conclusion! Perhaps this was good news and not exciting enough to print. Those who protested (inside the law I might add) were excited though. Until then I think everyone wondered what view the government held on parent-led ECE.
Playcentre is a New Zealand invention. My daughter was the fourth generation of our family to be involved. I promote it whenever there’s the chance because it promotes family values in a way that other ECE models struggle to. It also promotes inclusion and values diversity.
We had gay parents at Playcentre. We had all sorts of parents at Playcentre. All their children were treated with the same respect. No special attention, no idolization, no criticism (which is a negative form of special attention). Nor for the parents either.
Sixty years ago when my grandmother took my mother to one of the country’s first Playcentres there would have been no gay parents. Things have changed and we must go with it because there are children involved and they will be disadvantaged if we don’t.
So much Tracey, so so very much
That isn’t about families, that is about Early Childhood Education at the hands of the State, it is about inculcating the young not with the values of their family of origin but with the values of Wellington based bureaucrats – it is communist in provinance.
Play center is way better in that regard of course – being as the education is at the hands of the parents more or less.
We have allowed marriage to become trashed over the past forty years – which is very dumb because marriage and family are civilizing influences, particularly on men.
This shows for example, in the murder rate in this country in these enlightened times, three last weekend, a number that more or less matches the annual murder rate of sixty years ago when over ninty- five percent of the adult population was married.
Anyway some say given that marriage is trashed why not allow its fundamental purpose and meaning to be changed now – just shrug and let it go.
Maybe but it is your kids and mine who will pay the price of this vapidity.
We are closing schools in this country due to falling rolls, this is no secret, the population is getting older, this is no secret, the inevitable outcome is economic collapse among other things when a large percentage of the population is too old to work and there isn’t enough young to support them.
Never mind, for now we will continue to borrow and spend on frivolities and have fun while the sun shines – self indulgent ninnies that we are.
I once was a Playcentre ‘supervisor’.
Well this time you will know what I’m on about then Robert!
Andrei – “That isn’t about families, that is about Early Childhood Education”. It is actually about both. The parent has a strong voice at Playcentre. Indeed any parent is free (even encouraged)to stay, help out, and directly influence the shape of their child’s experience. Like any aspect of life, what you receive is commensurate with what you put in. Of course the government has some expectations in return for their part in funding it. That is fair. Without government funding, Playcentre would cease to exist.
Playcentre filled a gap for many of the families in the centres I was involved with. It provides a support structure and a sense of community and extended family that you well know is lacking for many people.
I don’t think gay marriage is a human rights issue as long as being unmarried does not deprive people of the opportunity to have a loving partnership and family life. It may have once, but does not these days. In fact whether gay people can marry or not will be of no consequence at all for most of us.
Do you find it offensive that the Prime Minister accepted, with a smile, a frivolous kiss from a homosexual man, Andrei? Or was it the sculling of the beer on camera that made you think “Sodom and Gomorrah”?
I wasn’t going to say more Robert but I will
Today there was another event in Auckland, “The Teddy Bears Picnic”
Thousands of children with their parents and grandparents gathered to celebrate the innocence of childhood and too enjoy the sun.
But the politicians weren’t there the preferred that other event and all the parties were represeted at that other event,
Says it all really, the children, the future of this country and those raising them do not matter so much to our leaders, they prefer the party animals
I guess, Andrei, that those politicians figure that neither teddy bears, nor the children that hold them dear, can’t vote. If so, and that’s the reason for their non-attendance, then that’s a sad state of affairs indeed. I suspect though, that the motivation for going to the Big Gay Out will have been for two reasons; some will have gone to show their genuine support for a minority group, others will have gone in the hope of endearing themselves to the group in order to shore up their vote. Key, in my view, was there for the latter reason, with the added reason perhaps, that he likes to be fawned-over and adored and there seemed to be plenty of that at the gay festival.
Oh, and there is another reason that just occurred to me; some politicians will have gone to be amongst the gay crowds because they themselves are gay.