The passionate  ridiculed some of the scaremongering – some had described the changes to the marriage bill as a ‘gay onslaught’ and ‘unnatural’.

“Well, we are struggling to know what the gay onslaught will look like. We don’t know whether it will come down the Pakuranga Highway as a series of troops or whether it will be a gas that flows in over the electorate that blocks us all in.” said Williamson.

“I also had a leader telling me I would burn in the fires of hell for eternity, and that was a bad mistake, because I’ve got a degree in physics. I will last 2.1 seconds – it’s hardly eternity”.

“All we are doing with this bill is allowing two people who love each other to have that love recognised by way of marriage,” he explained.

“We are not declaring nuclear war on a foreign state; we are not bringing a virus in that could wipe out our agriculture sector forever.”

The video has gone viral with more than 200,000 views. Watch it below.

When the bill was passed, observers of the session in the gallery of New Zealand’s parliament burst into song.