Maurice Williamson's 'big gay rainbow' speech with captions

Watch MP Maurice Williamson's witty speech supporting the Marriage Amendment Bill.

[Maurice Williamson]: Mr Speaker, I too will be taking a split call,

with my colleague Jamie Lee Ross, sort of a young and the vibrant versus the old and the boring.

[laughter]

And you, yeah, sir, and members of the house will be forced to choose which one is which, sir.

Sir, I want to first of all congratulate Louisa Wall for this bill and I want to say, sir, that the good news about the years in this parliament

is you learn to deflect all of the dreadful sort of fire and brimstone accusations that are going to happen, sir.

I've had reverend in my local electorate call "the gay onslaught will start the day after this bill is passed".

And sir, we're really struggling to know what the gay onslaught will look like.

We don't know if it'll come down the Pakuranga Highway as a series of troops,

or whether it will be a gas that flows in over the electorate and blocks us all in?

[laughter]

I also sir, had a catholic priest telling me that I was supporting an unnatural act. I found that quite interesting

coming from someone whose taken an oath of celibacy for his whole life.

[laughter]

I always thought - celibacy - okay we'll go with celibacy.

Ok. I haven't done it. So, I don't know what it's about.

[laughter]

I also had a letter telling me I would burn in the fires of Hell for eternity and that was a bad mistake 'cause I've got a degree in physics.

I used the thermodynamic laws of, uh, of physics - I put in my body weight and my, uh, my humidity and so on.

I assumed the furnace to be at five thousand degrees and I will last for just on 2.1 seconds.

[laughter]

It's hardly eternity, what do you think?

And some more disgusting claims about what adoption would be.

Well sir, I've got three fantastic adopted kids. I know how good adoption is and I found some of it just disgraceful.

I found some of the bullying tactics really evil. And sir, I've never been scared of bullies when I was at primary school.

However, a huge amount of the opposition was from moderates. From people who were concerned, who were seriously

worried what this might do to the fabric of our society. I respect their concern, I respect their worries.

They were worried about what it might do to their families and so on.

Let me repeat to them now, sir, all we are doing with this bill

is allowing two people who love each other to have that love recognised by way of marriage.

That is all we are doing.

We are not declaring nuclear war on a foreign state.

We are not bringing a virus in that could wipe out our agricultural system forever.

We are allowing two people who love each other to have that recognised.

And I can't see what's wrong with that for love nor money sir, I just cannot.

I cannot understand why someone would be opposed -

I understand why people don't like what it it is that others do. That's fine - we're all in that category.

But I give a promise to those people who are opposed to this bill right now.

I give you a watertight guaranteed promise. The sun will still rise tomorrow.

Your teenage daughter will still argue back with you as if she knows everything.

Your mortgage will not grow. You will not have skin diseases or rashes or toads in your bed sir, the world will just carry on.

So don't make this into a big deal. This is fantastic for the people it effects, but for the rest of us life will go on.

And finally, can I say sir, that one of the messages I had was that this bill was the cause of our drought.

[laughter]

This bill was the cause of our drought. Well if any of you follow my twitter account you will see that

in the Pacuranga electorate this morning it was pouring with rain.

[Laughter]

We had the most enormous big gay rainbow across my electorate.

[laughter, cheers]

It has to be a sign, sir, it has to be a sign - if you're a believer it's certainly a sign.

And can I finish, for all those who are concerned about this, with a quote from the bible.

It's Deuteronomy - I thought Deuteronomy was a cat out of Cats but never mind.

It's Deuteronomy chapter one, verse twenty nine "Be ye not afraid".

[cheers, applause]