MAURICE Williamson woke up one Wednesday last month another pudgy, grey-haired Kiwi minister with an unsexy portfolio*.
The father-of-three went to bed that night a man transformed by a jovial four-minute speech he delivered as New Zealand legalised gay marriage. He is a gay marriage advocate with a place on Ellen DeGeneres's couch and a YouTube hit count that would make Psy jealous.
"Be ye not afraid," he said then, quoting the Bible. Today in a news.com.au exclusive, Mr Williamson delivers a message for Australia and for the rest of the world: "Be ye not afraid" of gay marriage.
Mr Williamson's piece below - in which he also reveals the threats his family received after the vote - comes on the heels of former prime minister Kevin Rudd's surprise turnaround on the issue, which reignited the Australian debate on gay marriage.
'CHANGE IS COMING… AND WE CARRIED ON WITH OUR LIVES'
It has been more than a month since the New Zealand Parliament passed the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill. Later this year gay couples who want to express their love byway of marriage can do so. It is something Kiwis can be proud of.
You might have seen there was rioting in France after they passed similar legislation. Not in New Zealand. People just carried on with their lives, as I suspected they would.
Now, if that's what the prophesised 'gay onslaught' looks like then we'll take it every day and twice on Sundays. I can tell you that my own monitoring of the Pakuranga Highway, the road that cuts through my electorate, has shown nothing untoward since April 17th.
The insidious fear mongering has proved to be completely baseless, but hasn't stopped a few people writing nasty letters to me about the speech I made in support of gay marriage.
Previously on news.com.au: 'There was a big, gay rainbow over my electorate'
One man hoped my family and I would get AIDS and die. Many others said the Lord would deal to me in time – not very Christian of them is it?
One letter went on to say that soldiers who fought in wars would be outraged at what had happened - but this too is a flawed argument, as those soldiers were fighting for freedom.
In all the hate-filled emails there was not one credible argument about how allowing gay marriage would affect my marriage or theirs. Because in the end it won't.
It's great for those it affects but for the vast bulk of people it will have no impact on their lives.
Once the initial publicity dies down after the first gay marriage in New Zealand, most people won't know it is happening or give it another thought.
I'm pleased to report that for each negative piece of correspondence I received there were 50 positive emails, phone calls or letters. While many countries are still holding out on gay marriage and many don't want to even address it, my view is change is coming.
It's inevitable, but you would think the way some people have been carrying on that politicians the world over are trying to make gay marriage compulsory.
All gay marriage does is allow consenting gay couples to get married. That's it. I would say to the countries yet to have the gay marriage debate: Be Ye Not Afraid.