The institution of marriage was destroyed forever this evening after Parliament voted overwhelmingly to make it more widely available and redefine it as a consensual, loving relationship between any two people.

The Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill, written by Labour MP Louisa Wall, aimed to destroy marriage by making it more common and allowing it to be partaken in by two members of the same sex. It passed its third reading in the House of Representatives tonight by a vote of 77 to 44.

Loud celebrations were heard in the public gallery and throughout the halls of Parliament as the final votes to destroy marriage were tallied. Supporters of the bill rejoiced and were brought to tears as a waiata was performed to mark the conclusion of the vote.

Labour Leader David Shearer was amongst the first to publicly welcome the bill’s passage.

“On behalf of the vast majority of my Labour colleagues, we feel very privileged to have been able to make history tonight by destroying marriage for everyone,” he said. “We are so proud that our gay brothers and sisters now have the legal opportunity to ruin the marriages of others by having their own.”

But while Parliament celebrated, many heterosexual New Zealanders across the country were upset to learn that their years-old nuptials had been utterly destroyed and made irrelevant.

Gayle Oakeshott, of Hamilton, was particularly distressed by the passage of the law, and questioned how her marriage of 20 years would survive the consensual legal union of others who weren’t like her.

“If they say that my love for Bruce is just the same as a fag’s love for another fag, then what does my love really mean anymore?” she asked. “Nothing, I guess.”

Representing the views of those like Oakeshott was a relatively small number of MPs, including National’s Chester Borrows and Jonathon Young, who said that, while they weren’t vehemently opposed to the complete destruction of a centuries old tradition that kept society on the straight and narrow, the subject still needed “further discussion” before any action was taken.

Leader of the Conservative Party Colin Craig struck a much stronger note following the bill’s passage, saying that it amounted not only to the destruction of marriage, but also the destruction of parenthood and common decency.

“It is a sad and infamous day for this nation,” said Craig to a group of reporters outside Parliament this evening. “Our country has plunged itself into a dark moral abyss from which it will never return. By providing legal rights to people who like the wrong genitalia, we have sent a terrible message to our children and our peers about the role of dignity and faith in our society. If we are to say that it is acceptable for marriage to be between two men, or two women, or two man-woman hybrids, then what is to say that marriage cannot be between a man and a turtle, or a man and a table? What about a woman and a gorilla? That’s pretty disgusting.”

One reporter asked Mr. Craig what he would do tomorrow, now that the world had descended into morally ambivalent chaos.

“I don’t know,” said Craig. “Do some grocery shopping, I guess.”