12.15PM: As the speeches begin, more than a thousand people have gathered in Civic Square. A group of five young friends, gay and straight, has gathered to march on Parliament. Cameron says “this affects people that I know, I’m here for them.” Kate believes it’s a simple issue of human rights “I’ve got a lot of gay friends, why should they be treated differently to me?” “I hope to get married sometime in the future,” says Dugan. “And when the time is right I want the choice to be there for me. I want this for the future.” “People should be able to marry if they want to,” adds Kate. Jody Anderson with her son Wellington’s Civic Square is a picture of colour and diversity as a rally celebrating tonight’s first reading of the marriage equality Bill is about to begin. It’s an incredibly young crowd, mixed with protestors who marched during the Homosexual Law Reform debate, as well as gay and straight parents, and supporters. Over the last half an hour the crowd has swelled from around 50 people to over 600, and it continues to grow. Jody Anderson, a lesbian, who with her partner who with her partner has four children, says she will be marching for equal rights and equal choice in marriage. “We probably won’t get married ourselves, I’m not sure that’s the route we would ever want to go down. But it’s important that people have the choice. “I want to model for our children that we live in a world where we have equal rights and a world in which they can openly celebrate our relationships.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 29th August 2012 - 12:01pm