Couple celebrates Bay’s third civil union
From left, Bee Small (Pete Banham’s mother), Pete Banham, Peter Finlayson, June Finlayson (Peter Finlayson’s mother) and celebrant Charles Naylor. Photo: Gerard Hindmarsh.
Golden Bay’s third civil union was performed last Saturday when Peter Finlayson and Pete Banham had their “wedding” at Autumn Farm in Central Takaka.
Giving them away were their mothers, who both touchingly expressed their joy at seeing their sons so happy. Welcoming the 80 invited guests, retired Presbyterian minister and celebrant Charles Naylor joked: “Here we are at Autumn Farm, in autumn, witnessing two guys celebrating the autumn of their lives.”
It set the tone for the theatrics that followed, including a “jilted lover” who stormed up in the middle of the proceedings to slap one of the Peters in the face and run off. “Who was that?” the other enquired indignantly. “I’ll tell you later, Darling!” came the reply, obviously all part of the script.
After the couple was pronounced “husband and husband”, a bevy of drag queens staged a hilarious handbag-bashing and hair-pulling squabble for the bouquet. Free-range chooks got busy cleaning up the cornflake confetti strewn all around the garden, while an Abba show rounded off the formal part of the festivities in the evening.
It’s been 25 years since homosexuality was made legal in New Zealand, but only four years since the New Zealand Parliament passed the Civil Union Bill, establishing civil unions for same-sex and opposite-sex couples. It all began in Denmark in 1989, and since then civil unions under one name or another have been established by law in many developed countries in order to provide same-sex couples with rights, benefits and responsibilities similar to opposite-sex civil marriage.
In some jurisdictions, such as Quebec, Uruguay and New Zealand, civil unions are open to opposite-sex couples as well. Indeed, some heterosexual couples in this country now find civil unions a better fit for formalising their relationship without all the traditions, expectations and preconceptions that traditional marriage vows can bring.
The debate over civil unions was highly divisive in New Zealand, inspiring great public emotion both for and against the passing. Pastor Brian Tamaki and his band of black-shirted churchgoers marched to the beehive shouting “enough is enough” in protest against legislation they believed would ruin the sanctity of marriage. The Civil Union Act was later passed by a vote of 65 to 55. A companion bill, the Relationships Bill, was passed shortly thereafter to remove discriminatory provisions on the basis of relationship status from a range of statutes and regulations.
As a result of these bills, all couples in New Zealand, whether married, in a civil union, or in a de facto partnership, now generally enjoy the same rights and undertake the same obligations. These rights extend to immigration, next-of-kin status, social welfare, matrimonial property and other areas. The Civil Union Act came into effect on 26 April 2005 with the first unions occurring from Friday 29 April 2005.
Charles Naylor says that being a marriage celebrant didn’t automatically qualify him to be a civil union celebrant for this, his first officiation at a civil union ceremony.
“I had to apply to the Department of Justice,” he says. He acknowledges that his own Presbyterian church has had trouble with the issue of not only gay ministers, but civil unions as well. “Personally I can’t be bothered with the discrimination and low tolerance of the issue. For me, we’re just talking about wonderful people, indeed often artistically gifted, who have a lot to offer.”
Two years ago, Alexia Russell and Sue McLaren of Onekaka were also “married” by civil union here in the Bay. Their celebrant was Donna Chapman, Alexia’s younger sister from up north.
Explains Sue: “The occasion was a wonderful way to celebrate our relationship with friends and family, the same way heterosexual couples get a chance to do.”
Gerard Hindmarsh
