Kevin Hague Kevin Hague says the submission process on the marriage equality bill has been arduous, but is paying tribute to the “brave, honest and generous” pro-submitters who shared their stories. The gay Green MP has sat in on hours of oral submissions as a member of the Government Administration Select Committee, which is analysing Louisa Wall’s Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill after it passed its first reading. The committee heard its final submissions yesterday and is required to report the Bill to the House by 28 February. “Overall the submissions process has been arduous,” Hague says. “But almost all the submitters have been genuine and sincere in their beliefs even where their arguments have been nonsense, or the evidence they have based their views on has been the scaremongering and junk science distributed by Colin Craig and Bob McCroskrie,” he continues. “In many ways the pain shared by pro-submitters telling their stories, and the yearning to be recognised as fully equal members of society, were harder to listen to than even the most offensive submissions against. “People were amazing though – brave, honest and generous. Everyone on the committee was struck with how fantastic it was to see so many young people submitting, almost all in favour. There aren’t many issues that engage young people in the political process, but this has been one of them. “For a whole generation of young adults now it seems shocking that gay sex could have been against the law, or that LGBTI people should be treated differently by the law in any respect. That has been wonderful.” Some of the most extraordinary analogies and reasoning Kevin Hague heard against the Bill: The colour mauve can only be made by combining red and blue, not by red and red or blue and blue. And therefore . . . An apple is not an orange, and therefore . . . Having separate men’s and women’s toilets is appropriate discrimination, and therefore . . . Pine and particle-board are both wood (illustrated by actual pieces of wood), but only one of them is useful for building the frame of a house. A house that has its framing built from particle board will leak and fall apart. And therefore . . . The colour red is not the same as the colour green. If there was no difference between them then there would be chaos on our roads because traffic lights would be impossible to interpret. And therefore . . .
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 31st January 2013 - 2:00pm