Hutchison Paul: Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHutchison Paul: Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9501. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua): I planned to split my call with Chris Auchinvole. It is a great privilege to have the responsibility to exercise a conscience vote on this landmark Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill. I want to once again acknowledge all those who have submitted and written on this bill from both sides of the debate and thank them for their passion energy efforts and sincerity. Thank you Louisa Wall for your fortitude and those whom I have heard from young and old from all walks of life from all religions in Hunua and around New Zealand. Thank you to so many parliamentary colleagues.At one of my electorate meetings a highly intelligent crusty salt of the earth farmer urged me to vote against the bill but he later joked that over the last few generations the sequence of events has gone like this: in the first instance parents such as himself usedto tell their daughters not to come home with someone from a different religion then not to come home with someone from a different race then definitely not to come home single and pregnant and today then not to come home with someone from the same sex let alone marry them. He encapsulates the fact that society has evolved enormously within a few generations just as marriage has been evolving as a civil and religious institution throughout human history. In New Zealand we do not have such a clear separation between Church and State as some jurisdictions and I agree with the argument that the best way to protect religious freedom is to ensure separation of Church and State when it comes to equality under the law. With this legislation significant safeguards are in place to ensure that marriage celebrants clergy in particular remain free to choose according to their convictions.As a former specialist obstetrician and gynaecologist extremely poignant experiences for me were the rare occurrences where at the birth of a baby when the parents instinctively asked: “Is it a boy or a girl?” I had been literally unable to tell them. This has been because of ambiguous genitalia or a unique physical abnormality. It may take some weeks to fully assess a child have genetic testing carried out and assign a sex. Even that may be later changed. This illustrates the dramatic new knowledge available in the modern world to better understand the spectrum of physical genetic and social expression of gender and sexuality that was simply not possible in the past. I ask anyone on either side of the debate whether they would not hope that their newborn could be brought up in a society that is both tolerant and as caring about their child’s status and aspirations as any other child’s—a society that is inclusive fair and committed to respecting one another.It is a sign of huge change that today 65 percent of marriage ceremonies in New Zealand are solemnised independently of the Church. When it comes to marriage as Rev. Margaret Mayman puts it the overriding message of Christian faith is that we are all called to practise justice and compassion and to welcome those who are marginalised and oppressed. The biblical call to love our neighbour as ourselves provides the mandate for marriage equality. The ethical criterion of a marriage relationship is to do with the quality not the orientation of the partners. In the first reading of this bill I said that despite trying hard I could not construct a strong enough intellectual moral health or even spiritual reason to vote against it. I am now quite convinced that at the end of the day the strength of any human union is about love tolerance giving forgiving sharing inclusiveness commitment and fairness irrespective of gender. These are universal qualities that have no boundaries.