Wellington 12 months ago was a day much like today: wet, dark, miserable. Hundreds of people braved the weather to stand and queue outside the Beehive, of all ages and dressed in all the colours of the rainbow, to see marriage equality become law.
I lined up with a friend, and an ex-girlfriend. The bottle of scrumpy we’d passed around between the three of us as we huddled in a doorway on Molesworth St before joining the queue only added to the celebratory atmosphere. I was reminded of the hours I spent waiting outside a hotel to see One Direction.
But there was an edge to the buzz in the air – not enough to quell the excitement, but enough to notice. This wasn’t the reckless, drunken celebration of the Sevens, or the Rugby World Cup final. I, and surely others, were worried that the bill wasn’t going to pass. It was irrational, given the success of earlier readings, but still the Chinese whispers spread along the queue.
By the time we got through the doors, the public gallery was full, so we were set up in another room with a big TV. Everyone, bar the church group at the back, was buzzing, and checking Facebook and Twitter on my phone, I saw that our excitement was shared by friends, acquaintances, out-of-towners, New Zealanders overseas.
Most notable was the repeated use of the “proud” – a word synonymous with leaders of the queer movement, now used by people to describe how they felt about their country. It was like a sudden injection of patriotism, and that’s how I knew that this was a big deal even outside of my liberal Wellington bubble. There’d been an eruption on social media of the kind you only see directly after an earthquake (and even then, a magnitude five or higher) – but this time, it was about not even politics, but legislation.
It created a space in time where people were encouraged to challenge their assumptions of, and preconceptions about, sexuality
So much of what goes on in Parliament doesn’t have much of a real, tangible impact on the day-to-day life of the public. When the final vote was read, with 77 in favour and 44 against, it was just a law being passed, as so many have been without consequence in the past. But marriage equality made a real difference to the lives of hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people up and down the country – not least because it was a catalyst for a nationwide discussion that might otherwise never have happened.
The campaign for marriage equality focused less on equal rights than it did on the meaning of love and family, which the passing of the legislation ultimately came to symbolise to many. It created a space in time where people were encouraged to challenge their assumptions of, and preconceptions about, sexuality. And for many of my friends, it set them on a journey to discover their own. As each person ‘came out’, it was as though another was made to feel more confident about their own desire to explore, in an example of the trickle-down theory that economists didn’t see coming.
That was the case with me. The emotional rollercoaster that is coming to terms with your own sexuality saw me spiral into a bout of depression that turned into an ongoing battle with anxiety, resulting in too many hours spent in bed and a slide in my grades. It’s hardly surprising that a disproportionate number of queer youth suffer from mental health issues when laws, and attitudes, and language can make you feel like you’re less of a person because you want to pash people of the same (or, as in my case, both) genders.
But I was lucky enough to experience the high of the rollercoaster, as well as the low. The campaign for marriage equality meant I didn’t feel so vulnerable. The discussion that showed sexuality as a spectrum, rather than a black-and-white division between gay and straight, opened up a space for bisexuality in which I found myself finally at ease. And by being more open about my own experience, I discovered the value of being vulnerable and feeling supported; that crying in a friends’ arms and being told that “everything will be fine” is one of the most wonderful – if not daunting – feelings.
I can’t help but think how lucky I am that the debate sparked by the legislation created a space for me to feel empowered, just when I needed it most
Some may argue that marriage is of questionable relevance in this day and age, or wonder why same-sex couples would ever want to partake in a traditionally heterosexual institution. I myself am ambivalent at best about the idea of getting married. It wasn’t the law itself – a piece of paper signed by the Governor-General, enabling other pieces of paper to be signed by celebrants – that prompted my tears, but its symbolism. The significance of marriage equality, for me, was in the message it sent to members of the queer community, their whanau, and their supporters: that we were equal under law, and our love was legitimate.
Today, one year on, I can’t help but think how lucky I am that the debate sparked by the legislation created a space for me to feel empowered, just when I needed it most. By no means everyone is as fortunate as I am; there are still patches of prejudice, and total equality remains something to aspire to. And just as sexuality is a spectrum, individuals’ experiences of it aren’t always straightforward.
But the legalising of marriage equality was an enormous step in rejecting homophobic and sex-negative attitudes as a country. It was an opportunity for people to challenge their own and others’ prejudices, and we rose to the occasion. To me, it felt like the arms of a nation had been extended to every queer person who’d ever struggled with feeling different or ‘not normal’. On that night a year ago, it felt like everything would be fine.
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