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You may call me a liberal--I take that as a compliment.

And you may call me a nut job. Since you opinions are so odious, and so unfounded, I could hardly take offence.

But nothing that you can say will take away my qualifications, my experience, and the respect of my peers, both here and where it matters, in the real world.



You may well believe that.

But when you set yourself in opposition to the single most important political fight of a significant minority group, then I think you have to ask yourself the question of whether that is genuinely true.

How does same-sex marriage affect you? You are a self-proclaimed heterosexual. You are unlikely to ever be inclined to enter into a same-sex marriage. You can certainly never be compelled into one. How can any of this touch your life in any meaningful way? So why stand in the way of others who wish to pursue such marriages?

Your notion of diminishment of heterosexual rights is nonsensical. So what other reason can there be? I will gladly withdraw the epithet of bigot if you can present to me a single, cogent argument why the extension of same-sex marriage rights in New Zealand represents any diminishment of your personal rights, or the rights of any class of persons to which you belong.

Prove me wrong.

Not any more, they aren't:


'Bride' and 'groom' will stay on forms
The New Zealand Herald, Tue 16 April
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic ... d=10877768

Government officials have backed off plans to delete the terms "bride" and "bridegroom" from marriage certificates if Parliament votes tomorrow to legalise gay marriage.

Internal Affairs spokesman Michael Mead said the department had reconsidered an early draft which would have used only the gender-neutral heading "Particulars of parties to marriage" on the marriage certificate, and now intended to provide several options.

Labour MP Ruth Dyson, who chaired the select committee on the gay marriage bill, has also written to Internal Affairs Minister Chris Tremain, after the Weekend Herald reported that the words "bride" and "bridegroom" might disappear from the forms, to say the committee wanted terms such as bride, groom, wife and husband to be "maintained wherever possible and appropriate".

(Read more ...)



Hopefully, your concerns about the legal side of this debate have now been addressed. If not, please let me know.

From the NZ parliamentary report on the marriage equality bill:

Transgender issues
We wish to highlight an issue brought to our attention by transgender people. At present, married transgender people wanting their sex changed on their birth record (to enable them to fully adopt the gender of their choice) must either divorce their spouse or change their relationship from a marriage to a civil union. We are aware of how distressing this can be for transgender people in this position, and how disruptive it can be for their families.

We consider that transgender people should be able to change sex without being subject to these constraints. The bill as consequentially amended would enable any transgender people to continue to be married regardless of their gender identity.

....

The bill will also specifically define marriage as "the union of 2 people, regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity".


Actually, the protection for all celebrants – specifically in section 29 of NZ's Marriage Act – has been in place since (at least) 1955. Why politicians back then thought such a clause was necessary is beyond me. But it's made the job of lawmakers supporting marriage equality a lot easier: all they had to do was emphasise what was already there.

One more day till the final vote.

Kotahi aroha: One love.

The protection for religious celebrants has always been required to protect Roman Catholic and Anglican priests who object to the celebrating the second marriage of a person with a divorced spouse who is still living.

The New Zealand Parliament took the position that rather than protecting only religious objections, it would extend protection to all celebrants. It's a legislative choice.

Hey, you're right. During the debate in the NZ parliament tonight, one MP confirmed exactly what you said.

NZ!

[img][800:403]http://sphotos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/487898_456498271098158_1159816979_n.jpg[/img]

Wow! That's fantastic news!
I'm so happy for you and for NZ.

NZ: Marriage equality bill passes
Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Read at: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8560494/Marriage-equality-bill-passes

New Zealand's Parliament has passed its Marriage Equality bill this evening, 77 votes to 44. New Zealand becomes the 13th nation in the world to legalise same-sex marriage.

The link also has a video that shows brief highlights of the parliamentary debate. And yes, the Parliament is singing at the end.

Me, too.

2013 should be an interesting year for marriage equality worldwide. Uruguay and New Zealand have approved marriage equality laws, with France, the UK and Colombia likely to follow. Other countries are welcome to join in.

But yeah, I'm buzzing atm.

Damn, that video brought tears to my eyes...
It's so good to see such sanity in action.

From one very happy Brit to my NZ brother:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DANPs-YjFdk[/youtube]

I firmly believe that the tipping point has come. Within five years I expect that every OECD country except Turkey will have legalized same-sex marriage (and I fully expect Turkey to be the first Muslim majority state to legalize it, as well, though I am not so foolish as to believe the five year projection for that).

I was quite ignorant and was thinking that Europe was the only continent where some countries already have same-sex marriage, but I just found out that Argentina, Uruguay and South Africa also do. I knew about Canada. I wonder why Australia is left behind in this. It's a shame. I also wonder about other parts of the world like Asia and Africa - when is it going to happen? Maybe never?

Was an awesome night in NZ. A couple more videos:

Awesome speech by Maurice Williamson on the marriage equality bill
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCA8CA2hUoQ[/youtube]

Announcement of the final vote + cheers and singing from the public gallery
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW4DXOAXF8U[/youtube]

I swear, I WILL get over this ... by tomorrow.

^ got someone special you want to marry?

Nah, you won't - not ever.
it's made history, and banished a cruel, bigoted, totally unjustifiable inequality.

Maurice Williamson was awesome - I wish we had MPs like that.
(And I still had tears in my eyes watching the final vote and the reaction. Just brilliant... so happy)