Another step in the right direction

The passing of the Marriage Amendment Bill marks another moment of greatness for New Zealand.

When I lived in England I used to boast how progressive New Zealand was.

Not excessive boasting, mind you. I was working on building sites in London, and your average brickie from Mile End or sparkie from Newcastle working 12 hours a day was generally not in the mood to hear about women voting or homosexual law reform.

I suppose I'm proud because we are, in many respects, still a somewhat primitive country with slow broadband, badly-fitting bras, three leg sizes for jeans, seasonal fruit, and towns that shut down at 2pm on a Sunday. We're trapped on a distant island where it costs thousands of dollars to fly to most other countries.

Yet I rejoice at our sheer adaptability, our ability to transcend "tradition" and say: This actually is the right fit for our country, so let's get on and do it. From a Kiwi-European point of view, we've been doing it since the 19th century.

This adaptability, in modern times, has worked for the women's vote, homosexual law reform, nuclear-free policies and prostitution law reform.

This bill has had many detractors. Some of their statements have been, in my opinion, downright disturbing. Notable, to my mind, is the letter published on Friday by Right to Life, describing the passing of the bill as part of a growing culture of death and celebration of sterility.

I'm not exactly hard-core traditional. I am of two generations of mixed families, with half-siblings and stepchildren. My basic view is we are all committed to the family we belong to, and we are all doing our best to live our lives, with the people we love, in the time we have on this Earth.

Once you accept that commonsense rationale, then everything else is simply details.

There are those who have argued the mechanism of civil union should be enough.

I don't want to insult those who have enjoyed a civil union, but I've always found the concept a bit demeaning.

Getting married is awesome. I totally recommend it. It has a pure, righteous joy that everyone should be entitled to enjoy. After that, whether you're male or female, or both, it's down to you whether it works out or not.