OPINION: Hi Australia, this is New Zealand. It's come to our attention that you're deciding whether to legalise gay marriage right now and as a friend, we'd like to take a moment to urge you not to make the same mistake we did. Please, please vote NO to same sex marriage.
Here in New Zealand our Government voted for marriage equality back in 2013. Many of us were horrified.
We predicted that gay marriage would be a slippery slope, and we were right. It started with men marrying men and ladies marrying ladies, then before we knew it, we were seeing dogs marry cats, cats marry birds, birds marry dogs and babies marry babies.
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We knew we'd hit rock bottom when last week, on national TV, we saw Vicky marry Andrew on Married At First Sight NZ. Now I ask you, who in the hell thought that was going to work?
We predicted that same-sex marriage would increase crime. Again, we were right - just a couple of years after the vote New Zealand had to deal with hundreds of new criminals. Sure, most of them were sent back to us on planes from Australia, but still.
People tell me the Christian lobby is putting up a big fight in Australia, well good for them. Here in New Zealand many predicted marriage equality would destroy the church and, once again, they were right.
Before gay marriage was legalised, the ChristChurch Cathedral stood tall and proud. After? It was destroyed by an earthquake.
You should have seen New Zealand before gay marriage. It was perfect. Now people are living in cars, our native species face extinction and our waterways look like toilets. Did gay marriage cause these things? Sure, why not. Let's go with that.
Vote No Australia. Stay strong! Look to your heterosexual heroes for inspiration. Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe, Hollywood actress Portia De Rossi … when are these two gonna get together, am I right?
And if we're looking for straight role models, how about the band Tony Abbott suggested to replace Macklemore at the NRL Grand Final? There's nothing gay about Savage Garden.
I miss marriage the way it used to be. Between a strong handsome man and his loving obedient wife - a good honest marriage, that was built to last.
Australia, the world is watching. It's time for you to stand up and say, we don't want to be in the same club as New Zealand, Britain and the US. We see our democratic future somewhere in the sweet spot between Iraq and Yemen.
You do you Australia.
The rest of the world might be saying "I do" but you can be the country that says "we won't".
Don't let this happen to you.
Look how miserable these people are, look at the hate they're spreading, look at what they're doing to families.
Don't be like New Zealand, Australia. Last year we saw almost 1000 scenes like this and the country is completely overrun by love - please, don't let the same thing happen to you.
Jesse Mulligan is a host on Three's The Project, airing 7pm weeknights.
