Dyson Ruth: Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9503. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): It is my intention to split my call with Moana Mackey.I am proud and privileged to speak in the third reading of the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill. I want to see this bill passed into law tonight.I want to acknowledge the thousands of people who submitted on the bill. We heard some very powerful stories at the Government Administration Committee. We heard stories from young gay and lesbian New Zealanders who felt so strongly that passing this bill would be a recognition and acceptance of them. For that reason alone I support this bill. I want to live in a society that is respectful and tolerant where diversity is recognised and cherished and where love and commitment are supported. This bill helps to achieve that aim.The bill does three primary things. It allows same-sex couples to marry it ensures that where a person has transitioned from one gender to another and remained married throughout that significant change they can have their marriage recognised in the law and it extends to same-sex married couples the current provision of allowing a single person to adopt a child.The bill ensures that our religious freedoms for celebrants are maintained. We in the select committee applied a belt and braces approach to ensure that the law is beyond doubt in backing the rights of marriage celebrants to decline to marry a couple should such a marriage not be in accordance with their beliefs. The Marriage Act has since 1955 said that celebrants can do that presumably to protect celebrants from being forced to marry heterosexual couples of different religions or—heaven forbid—marrysomebody who was divorced. We have maintained that protection for celebrants under the law.This bill removes section 56 of the Marriage Act. Some people may not be as familiar with that section as I am so let me share it with you. That section of the Act says that it is an “Offence to deny or impugn validity of lawful marriage”. We have taken that section out of our law. We are not proposing that more people denigrate other people’s marriages but we just do not think that that section sits sensibly within a human rights framework.The issues of religious freedoms of celebrants being able to decline to marry a couple and the view of someone in relation to another’s marriage have all been the subject of gross misrepresentations from opponents of the bill and I resent those misrepresentations. They have been made by just a small group of opponents but they have spread these lies about the bill widely and they have upset people and made people anxious about things that are just not true. I think that lying in a debate about something as important as this is immoral. I want to pay tribute to the opponents of the bill who told the truth about their reasons for opposition. Sadly that was not the case for all opponents. So just to clarify no celebrant will be obliged under the law to marry any couple—heterosexual or same sex.The bill does not rewrite the marriage vows. Vows of marriage will be written by the couple getting married and the celebrant as they currently are. It will not be illegal to call your husband your husband—phew—and it will not be illegal to call your wife your wife. You will still be able to have “bride and groom” on your marriage certificate if that is what you want to have on it.I spoke earlier about the gay and lesbian submitters on this bill. For many presenting a submission—not just on any bill but on a bill about their right to marry about their life—took huge courage and I want to pay a massive tribute to all those who came along. Some of those submitters particularly the older ones told us of feeling rejected and different. They told of the fear of coming out to their family and friends of denial of their own sexual orientation and of living their life as a lie. They told of being bullied and feeling suicidal of not being part of their own community. This law is not going to change our world overnight we will not wake up tomorrow and find ourselves in a totally tolerant and inclusive society but this will be a lawful recognition of the value of those loving relationships. It is a step forward in recognising the value of love in our law.