Our voting papers for the smacking referendum arrived in this afternoon’s post. Matt managed to make it home just before the post shop closed so our completed ballots are already in the mail on their way back to the Returning Officer. It was easy; no driving, no parking, no queuing, no mucking around with ID. […]
Entries Tagged as 's59'
(dis)Honest to God: How Not to Argue about the Smacking Referendum
July 28th, 2009 73 Comments
Given that yesterday we advertised Dr Glenn Peoples’ upcoming public lectures and because the smacking referendum begins on Saturday, I thought we’d share this article critiquing bad anti-smacking reasoning by Glenn. (dis)Honest to God: How Not to Argue about the Smacking Referendum Ian Harris tells us (“Honest to God,” Dominion Post, [Dominion Post. Saturday July […]
Tags: Glenn Peoples · Ian Harris · Referendum · s59 · Smacking
Fisking Ian Hassall: The Arbitrary Ethical Reasoning on the Smacking Referendum
July 10th, 2009 41 Comments
Recently Dr Ian Hassall gave a presentation, on the upcoming referendum on section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961, entitled: How did we come to have a law that supported hitting children? This presentation defends the thesis that mild physical punishment (smacking) is wrong and should remain illegal in New Zealand. In this post I […]
Tags: David Benatar · Defences · Ethics · Ian Hassall · Moral Discourse · Referendum · s59 · Smacking
Fisking Margaret Mayman: The Flawed Moral Theology on the Smacking Referendum
July 7th, 2009 7 Comments
In “A Christian Perspective on the Child Discipline Referendum,” Rev Dr Margaret Mayman presents a theological justification for retaining the amended section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961, which has criminalised force used against a child for the purposes of parental correction. Mayman began by offering three standard arguments for repealing the old section 59, […]
Tags: Crimes Act · David Benatar · Hermeneutics · Margaret Mayman · Referendum · s59 · Smacking · Theology
No Defences Permitted for the Accused
June 19th, 2009 36 Comments
In, The referendum campaign is underway, No Right Turn’s Idiot/Savant gives an excellent example of an argument we see coming up a lot in the debate around the upcoming referendum on smacking. In addition to trotting out the standard ad hominem, that everyone who supports the reinstatement of the old section 59 of the Crimes […]
Tags: Bad Reasoning · Crimes Act · Defences · Idiot/Savant · Referendum · s59 · Smacking · Sue Bradford · William Blackstone
A Bill to Amend the Anti-Smacking Law
March 19th, 2009 5 Comments
Family First have just released that a private members bill is set to go into the ballot to amend the anti-smacking law. Assuming it is well drafted, ACT’s John Boscawen is the MP parents across the country can thank. While we do not buy into the notion that this law should be changed because the […]
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
Jim Evans Decisively Smacks John Roughan
August 6th, 2009 11 Comments
On Saturday the NZ Herald’s John Roughan demonstrated why journalists should not engage in legal interpretation in his widely criticised piece on the smacking referendum, “Sinister undertones to referendum instigator.” At the time I struggled to ascertain whether Roughan was being deliberately deceptive or he just didn’t get it. He essentially quoted the non-controversial, much […]
Tags: Jim Evans · John Roughan · Referendum · s59 · Smacking