Kevin Hague has highlighted an example of some of the anti-marriage equality mail that MPs have received.
EXACTLY WHAT ARE GAYS #4
WHO SAYS WE NEED ‘OFFICIAL MARRIAGE’ FOR INSECURE HOMOSEXUALS?
WHAT’S WRONG WITH CIVIL UNION?
OR FOR EXTREME INSECURITY, MAYBE CASTRATION COULD RELIEVE THEIR ANXIETY
(IT DID FOR MY DOG) (BE LIKE GENETIC ENGINEERING TOO).
OR PERHAPS SUGGEST THEY GET ‘MARRIED’ IN UGANDA INSTEAD.
BE ALMOST WORTH IT TO PAY THEIR ONE WAY FARE.
DON’T YOU VOTE FOR SAME SEX MARRIAGE!
YOUR ELECTORATE WILL REMEMBER IN 2014!
xxxxxxx yyyyyyyyy
PS DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT ADOPTION!
PPS YOUR MUM WASN’T A LESBIAN.
In response Kevin is reasonable and rational (and incredibly patient and polite). I’ll be a little more direct to the letter writer. ”You are a dick. Aside from being wrong on this issue you are also pushing MPs toward voting for marriage equality. If you were smart you’d realise that MPs don’t want to be associated with extremists like you.”
Anyway, Hague then talks about his own relationship and what his committed relationship looks like – much like most committed (married) heterosexual relationships:
My partner and I got together in August 1984. That’s 28 years. Probably longer than many of the MPs who will end up voting against Louisa’s Bill. Our lives together are not really any different to those of many heterosexual couples. We cook and eat together, we watch TV, we do the gardening, we have stupid arguments, we visit our families and friends, we go cycling together, we pay the mortgage, we go to the supermarket, we have had a houseful of teenagers, we went to their parent-teacher interviews, we go to the gym. We love each other.
We don’t know if we will marry. But if we do, we hope you will celebrate with us, and recognise that lighting our candle does not extinguish yours – it just increases the light.
That last line “we hope you will celebrate with us, and recognise that lighting our candle does not extinguish yours – it just increases the light” is taken from my favourite speech from the Civil Union bill debate.
I used to often tell my students: “You don’t make your own candle shine more brightly by blowing out somebody else’s.”, and the converse of that adage is: “My own candle will not glow more dimly if I should light somebody else’s.” Therefore, I ask this question: how will my own marriage be diminished by the passage of this legislation? The answer, and I am convinced it is the correct answer, is it will not make one iota of difference. If that is the case, what is so dreadfully wrong in allowing other New Zealanders of a different disposition to make a long-term, public commitment to someone they love?
Brian Donnelly was a New Zealand First MP, a great man, teacher and leader. If he was still around I am sure that New Zealand First wouldn’t be the pussies they are being in suggesting they will either abstain or bloc vote against the bill. I also thought that Denis O’Rourke was a man very like Donnelly (full of compassion and understanding) – I can only hope that O’Rourke will ‘man up’ and challenge Winston.
