New Zealand Lawmakers Sing Love's Praises After Passing Marriage Equality

Despite being told to keep customary order, joyous New Zealand Parlimentarians couldn't help but break into cheers, standing ovations and song after they and their colleagues passed a marriage equality bill there by a wide 77-to-44 margin last night.

The song, called "Pokarekare Ana," is a native Maori love song popularized during World War I and then published and distributed immediately after, becoming a fan favorite across all of New Zealand's disparate communities. Sung in Maori to the tune of an Irish Catholic hymn, the English translation goes like this:

The waves are breaking, against the shores of Waiapu,
My heart is aching, for your return my love.

Oh my beloved, come back to me, my heart is breaking for of love for you.

I have written you a letter, and enclosed with it my ring,
If your people should see it, then the trouble will begin.

Oh girl, come back to me, my heart is breaking for of love for you.

My poor pen is broken, my paper is spent,
But my love for you endures, and remains forever more.

Oh my beloved, come back to me, my heart is breaking for of love for you.

The sun's hot sheen, won't scorch my love,
Being kept evergreen, by the falling of my tears.

Oh girl, Come back to me, I could die of love for you.

The woman being shown all the love in this video is Louisa Wall, a lesbian parliamentarian who sponsored and fought for the bill, and earned even more cheers when she declared during the bill's impassioned debate, "In our society the meaning of marriage is universal - it's a declaration of love and commitment to a special person."

Here's video of the Parliamentarians getting down on love.