Crunch day

It's crunch day for the Civil Unions Bill. Parliament will vote later this afternoon on whether to send it forward to select committee, or whether to kill it dead. Stuff thinks the bill will pass, and they're probably right - with the votes that have been announced so far, there'd need to be an unusually high number of Labour defections for it to fail.

I'm disappointed to see that there are ACT MPs planning to vote against, though. For a supposedly liberal party, they have an awful lot of traditional social conservatives among the ranks...

If you're looking for people to lobby, try Maurice Williamson. He's undecided, but not sure whether gays should be treated the same as everybody else...

Update: OK, Williamson isn't undecided - he plans to vote against on the basis that "some gay couples want to be able to join heterosexual institutions such as marriage". So focus on asking him why they shouldn't be allowed to, and force him to examine his underlying assumptions.