Kevin Hague speaks on the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill

Your vote on this bill will stand against your name forever. It is up to you on which side of history you will be remembered. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6RbJPSW-eI

I am proud to stand tonight to congratulate my friend and colleague Louisa Wall, and to say that all Green Party MPs will be voting for this bill, the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill.

The New Zealand adolescent health research group has shown that teenagers who are same-sex attracted have disproportionately high rates of alcohol and other drug-abuse problems, depression, other mental health problems, self-harm, unsafe sexual behaviour, including HIV risk, and suicide attempts. In 2007, 20 percent of these young people had attempted suicide in the past year—that is five times the rate of their heterosexual peers. All of these issues are strongly associated with psychosocial risk factors like low self-esteem and feelings of isolation and worthlessness. Research is unequivocal that these in turn are very strongly associated with the experience of discrimination, or, alternatively, the experience of hiding one's sexual orientation to avoid discrimination. When I worked at the New Zealand AIDS Foundation in the early 1990s we produced a poster that said, simply: "HIV attacks the body. Prejudice attacks the spirit … Both can kill." The effects of this corrosive social environment on the individual also include anti-gay bullying, harassment, and violence. If we want to do something about the terrible burden of misery, illness, and death being faced by young lesbian, gay, and transgender people, then we have to do something about prejudice and discrimination. For me, that is why marriage equality is so important. The message that the State currently sends through this discriminatory law undermines these young people and fuels and gives heart to prejudice. That is why it must change.

A law that treats all couples equally does the reverse. It undermines prejudice, it empowers the marginalised, and it creates a healthier and happier society. That is why even if civil unions carried exactly the same rights and responsibilities, they would still not be enough. All of the time that heterosexual couples have access to the status of marriage and we do not, a message is sent that we are less than normal. If anyone disputes that, imagine if the situation were reversed. How would heterosexual people feel if they could not marry? My partner and I have been together for 28 years this month. My guess is that that is longer than most heterosexual marriages. At the beginning we could have been fired from our jobs, kicked out of our home, denied goods and services, and arrested and imprisoned for being who are and expressing our love. To allow us the right to marry would right an injustice, bring great benefit not only to us but to all of those marginalised young people, and harm absolutely nobody. In the words of a former and great member of this House, Brian Donnelly, I used to often tell my students: "You don't make your own candle shine more brightly by blowing out somebody else's." The converse of that adage is: "My own candle will not glow more dimly if I should light somebody else's." He asked this question: "How will my own marriage be diminished by the passage of this legislation?". He was talking about civil unions. The answer, and I am convinced it is the correct answer, is that 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? I have friends right across this House and I want to particularly acknowledge those who have changed their minds to support this bill, and also those who will oppose it tonight but have genuinely open minds to the possibility of change. But I say to others that your vote on this bill will stand against your name for ever. It is up to you on which side of history you will be remembered.