Poll suggests marriage equality support has dropped to 55 per cent
Image: Photo: David Alexander.
Support for marriage equality has dropped in recent weeks, polls show.
As the 鈥榥o鈥� continues, a new Guardian poll has shown a drop in support from 59 per cent to 55 per cent in just two weeks, according to .
Opposition to marriage equality has risen from 31 per cent to 34 per cent in the same period.
Marriage equality activists have said the drop in support is due to the 鈥榥o鈥� campaign鈥檚 tactics of conflating marriage equality with school and gender issues.
Some opponents to marriage equality have attempted to rebrand the issue as or claimed there will be a slippery slope to legalised polygamous marriage or bestiality.
Tiernan Brady of The Equality Campaign said it is not unexpected that the contest for votes has become tighter.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 a reminder to all of us that there isn鈥檛 any room to be complacent,鈥� he said.
鈥淵ou haven鈥檛 won until all the votes that are cast have been counted, so everybody needs to do everything that they can.
鈥淭hey can鈥檛 take it for granted. This will take every one of us who wants to see this happen.鈥�
Postal votes for the marriage equality survey began being mailed out last week, and voters have until November 7 to return their ballots.
The result will be announced on November 15.
The no campaign are actually quite clever with their campaign strategy because they are using scare tactics to alarm people about issues that are not even related to SSM and they are saying things that are untrue about us however if the yes campaign attempt to call them on their BS the no campaign scream discrimination and claim they are being bullied and not allowed to have an opinion. Either way they make us look like the bad guys.
I was feeling fairly confident of a Yes win last week but now I am not so sure. The whole experience is starting to get me down quite frankly. I haven’t felt this maligned sine the 80’s when we were blamed for AIDS.
Good comment Paul, it is smart campaigning to go with “if in doubt vote No” and then raise insane, paranoid concerns from everything to political correctness (Tony Abbott), religious freedom (John Howard) and the ongoing existence of Christmas (Margaret Court) when they won’t simply put up ideas for laws to avoid their paranoid concerns when marriage equality happens. It’s smart and dishonest.
But on the flip side, if there’s a narrow No win, we can freely say “Hey, there were thousands of votes for No by people who support marriage equality but wanted to save Christmas because Margaret Court scared the shit of them, so in fact we regard it as a Yes win” and we can smear the result with doubts too. We’re just using their smart tactics and their dishonesty to our advantage then.
And if there’s a Yes win, no matter how narrow, the laws will change and it’s not an issue.