The New Zealand Christian Right is now at crisis point, even given the amount of undeserved and uncritical coverage that Family First is getting over its pro-belting petition.
Otherwise, the picture is enjoyably bleak. The oldest organisations, Voice for Life and SPCS, seem to be faring the worst. Neither are particularly able to intervene effectively in either frustrating liberal abortion access or liberal censorship policy interpretations, due to the infirmity and cumulative deaths of its membership, without significant replenishment from younger conservative Christians.
That's not a problem with the Kiwi Party and the Family Party, the two fundamentalist microparties. Their difficulty is that both are unelectable, and the Kiwi Party only has a Member of Parliament at the moment because Gordon Copeland walked out on his former United Future colleagues.
Finally, we come to the Maxim Institute and Family First. The Maxim Institute is well on the way to becoming a generic centre-right lobby group, and seems to promote social conservative causes reluctantly. Its only acknowledgement of its conservative Christian origins occurs at its Compass youth symposia at Snells Beach, Auckland,each January. And it's dwarfed by the resources available to the transtasman Centre for Independent Studies.
Family First is the current leading New Zealand Christian Right organisation, largely attributable to its populist rabble rousing against Section 59 Repeal. It has been successful on no other public policy issue, although it would do New Zealand LGBT communities well to keep an eye on it. It is the most logical antigay organisation to lead any future offensive against inclusive adoption reform or same-sex marriage. Ultimately, though, the Institute and Family First may be left alone in the field.
Can social conservatism survive in New Zealand as currently constituted? Probably not. Future social conservatives might well find that they get more traction on issues like drug policy than opposition to feminism, LGBT rights and children's rights, although the euthanasia issue will probably remain an exception unless and until medical opinion significantly liberalises.
Ironically enough, Death and Plague are two of the mythical Four Horsemen of the Christian Apocalypse. At the moment, they seem to be cutting a wide swathe through the former constituency of the Christian Right in New Zealand.
Not Recommended:
Family First: http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/