Marriage equality protesters were self righteous to complain about two straight male rugby fans marrying to win tickets to the Rugby World Cup, says Rob Buchanan.

“This is a parody of marriage.” “This is deeply offensive, mocking and trivialising relationships.” Do either of these comments sound familiar? This time around, these are not the shrill attention-seeking wails of a mulletted, washed-up hack. Nor are they the catechism of an inbred evangelical family. They are disappointingly the self-righteous protests of certain LGBT rights campaigners in New Zealand at the news that two straight best mates decided to avail of New Zealand’s same-sex marriage in order to win tickets. The competition was run on a New Zealand radio show, and perhaps the only thing approaching a religious or secular mystical union was represented by the Kiwi’s sincere obsessive love of rugby. Travis McIntosh will marry his best mate Matt McCormick to win the so-called ‘Love You Man’ competition, to claim the prize of 2 tickets for next year’s Rugby World Cup in England.

There are two very distinct ways to deal with issues like this, which will inevitably rise in all countries with same sex marriage whether there is still a “novelty” factor for the ignorant or not. Sadly it seems the Gays have been grabbing the headlines in the most immature, worst way. There is a huge morality trap here that sadly, though unsurprisingly, some Queers have fallen in to. Rather than these two straight lads trivialising same-sex marriage, we instead have gays trivialising our dignity. Showing how quickly the oppressed can become the oppressor. This only provides ammunition for the “I told you so” homophobes and those who feel that the rise of gay equality equals an attack on straight rights. Their desire to be outraged is sadly misplaced and has only made them look as bad as the very people we have been attempting to fight.

And although there is no real attempt at “oppression” of the straight men by their gay critics, there is a definite, near Pythonesque, inability for the angry queers to see the irony that they are already using the vocabulary of the homophobe. Selecting nearly word for word the rhetoric and dogma which so recently was slung against them. Was the competition slightly tasteless, crass and insensitive? Well yes in my opinion it was. But then again I don’t look to shock jock radio contests for my moral compass do you? Also a fact seemingly ignored by many is that this station The Edge previously ran a competition for an all-expenses paid same-sex wedding for an LGBT couple to celebrate marriage equality coming into effect in New Zealand. The lifelong best friends met through rugby as children. One of them is a teacher, the other an engineer and, from reading their interviews, they are anything but homophobic.

Same-sex marriage only became legal in New Zealand last summer. I would have thought it would have at least taken a decade before the newly-enfranchised homosexuals began to already forget their own once virtuous calls for egalitarianism in the face of a bigoted establishment.

This is not their privilege to decide who should avail of the new laws or not. It is not their business to repress. Would it make any difference if the two lads fellated each other to gay it up a bit? Was it a degrading “stunt”, perhaps, but degrading towards all forms of marriage? Is it any more damaging to same sex marriage than Liz Taylor’s prolific record for straight marriage or that Kardashian harlot’s lunch-break duration unions? Hardly. What is quite damaging to same sex marriage and to the integrity of the moral high ground we must believe we hold is these hard trigger hypocrites anxious to wring their hands at the first pothole they encounter.

Wouldn’t it have been far more useful to our cause for members of GayNZ to offer to turn up at the wedding and give advice, get some airtime to talk about homophobia and about the positive effects of same sex marriages and families rather than constantly being negative and reactionary? Our own next big leap toward equality is on the horizon in this country. There will be many things coming out of the woodwork, many hard truths and harder lies which LGBT people in Ireland will be confronted with. We must learn from the strengths and weaknesses exposed by the experiences of LGBT people in other countries. Thick skins and patience will get us through it, knee jerk reactions and an inability to distinguish between a mischievous of joke and a genuine attack on our dignity could lose it.