'Rebuff’ to law reformers

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32677, 5 August 1971, Page 2

'Rebuff’ to law reformers

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 4. The decision of the Cabinet and caucus not to reform the law prohibiting homosexual acts between consenting adult men in private is seen by the Homosexual Law Reform Society as another example of the Government’s failing to respond to public opinion.

The society’s president (Professor J. H. Robb) commented today on the statement by the Prime Minister (Sir Keith Holyoake) to the Young Nationalists' conference at Dunedin. "This seems to be a rebuff to the younger. party members, whose study of the matter last year led to a change in party policy—and it is still National Party policy,” said Professor Robb. These younger members were concerned about social justice, and believed that equality before the law for the 45,000 to 50,000 homosexual men in New Zealand, as estimated by the Justice Department, could not be to the disadvantage of the rest of the community. Professor Robb said that the Government’s decision ignored the declared wishes of the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches, (he Associated Churches of Christ, the Quakers, and influential Anglican opinion. The law reform was also supported by the Jaycees and the Council for Civil Liberties. “This is a considerable section of responsible opinion which must be known to the Prime Minister, who admitted last year there had been a change in public opinion,

he said. “Perhaps that is why Sir Keith Holyoake seems in some doubt how whether the Government’s decision has been right. He told the Young Nationalists that it had been taken ‘wisely or not’.”