Verbal submissions have wrapped up on the marriage equality bill today, with Wellington celebrant, counsellor and long-time gay rights campaigner Bill Logan among the last to speak. Here’s what he said: Most parents dream of their children's marriages. Most children grow up dreaming of their own marriage. Perhaps some of us know that marriage is never a bed of roses, but nevertheless marriage is the central organizing myth of social aspirations. That is why this measure has been so long in coming, and why it attracts so much passion on both sides. Marriage is the path prescribed in our culture for fulfilment and happiness. Denying someone the right to take the path of marriage because they are not heterosexual is inevitably going to make that person think that their society disrespects something central to their personality. The costs of that sense of disrespect are huge. There are not many people who can easily laugh it off when society says to them: There is this wonderful institution called marriage, where happiness lies, but you are never allowed to be part of it. Not many people can take that lightly. Certainly not many 14 or 18 year-old kids. I work as a counsellor, and many of the young people I talk to fail to fit the heterosexual norm. I listen to parents agonize about how their gay kid will never be able to have a happy life, and how they hope so fervently their child will get over their gayness. I listen to fifteen year-olds telling me they are seriously thinking about suicide because they believe that their sexual preferences will prevent them from ever being fully accepted by their peers and their families. I also work as a funeral celebrant, and have led many funerals for young people who have suicided. I believe a high proportion of them were struggling with questions of acceptance of their sexuality. In just the last year or so I've dealt with four cases of families kicking kids out of the family home, with the objective of helping those kids get over their gayness. It always leads to suicidal thoughts, and sometimes to suicide. The denial of equal rights lies in the background here, as parents are encouraged to see non-heterosexuals as properly excluded from the normal institutions of society. The denial of equal rights tells heterosexuals that they are in some sense better than non-heterosexuals, it licenses schoolyard bullying. So I believe this is important stuff. I've been involved in seeking a fair go for people who are not heterosexual for a long time, and I've seen three previous major law reforms: The decriminalisation of male homosexual acts (1985-86) The extension of the human rights legislation to non-heterosexuals (1993) The passage of the civil union legislation (2004) Just as right now there are dire predictions of the end of the world as we know it if the reform is made, so for each of those reforms there were apocalyptic predictions. But what I saw in fact was that New Zealand adjusted quite well to each reform, and that society merely became slightly more humane with each one. Most importantly for me, each of these reforms made a world in which it was a little bit more possible for non-heterosexuals to grow up with a sense of self-respect. Like the reforms that preceded it, giving us equal access to the legal institution of marriage will not bring an end to civilisation. But it will remove another important foundation to the wall of prejudice faced by non-heterosexuals. Bill Logan - 30th January 2013