With Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young introducing a private members Bill into the Senate seeking to grant same-sex couples equal marriage rights, it is well worth looking at the recent Galaxy poll on this very issue to demonstrate just how far behind the Australian population our political representatives are.
The Galaxy poll taken on the 29-31 May 2009 asked the following question:
Do you agree or disagree that same sex couples should be able to marry in Australia?
In 31 of the 32 demographic cohorts measured, a majority of Australians support same sex marriage with only the over 50’s being the odd cohort out, where in that unique case the against held a plurality lead of 49 to 45.
I’ve thrown all of the results into paired charts below – blue for Total Agree broken down into strongly agree/agree and red for the disagree responses. Just click the charts to expand, and the margins of error for each of the 192 cohort responses are provided in a couple of tables at the bottom. Some of the MoE’s are quite large because the sub-samples were quite small. But the one thing the results clearly show is our political representatives are far, far behind the curve of public opinion when it comes to the legal recognition of same sex marriages in Australia. It does make you wonder.
Results by Australian Total and Gender, plus by Age
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Results by State and by Party Support
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Results by Marriage Status and Children plus Employment Status and Employment Class
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Results by Capital City Status and Education plus Income
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95% Confidence Margin of Error for Every Result
19 Comments
Good on the Senator for introducing this bill – maybe it will force us to have a real debate on this issue. It’s ridiculous, in 2009, for us to discriminate against people on the basis of the gender they prefer.
If this is an accurate reflection of the Australian community, then WHO is influencing the Labor and Liberal parties? There are many erudite people who read and comment on this site. I would be interested to know their opinions on this matter? The Marriage Act could be changed in an instant!
Fear.
Thats the problem.
The major parties are fearful of losing the support of a small but influential, vociferous and powerful minority, the religious right.
There are the followers of this bloke who lives in Rome for example, well some of them, not many perhaps but they vote.
And there are are others as well.
In the 04, I think it was 04, Senate election Family First, Fred Nile and one other right wing Christian mob whose name I forget and can’t be bothered checking, all gave each other their second and third preferences. Not many votes there but hey one of the candidates got ALP preferences and became a Senator and the ALP did that cos they were vote chasing.
Better than giving it to the Greens they thought.
And remember who was Fielding’s #2?
Danny Niallah [sp?] he of the Vic. bush fires caused by condoning abortion fame.
The big parties are afraid of this lot.
The major parties must see this issue as not being a vote changer, or at least more likely to lose more votes than gain. Is a Liberal voting, same-sex marriage supporter going to change to Labor if Labor supported (or introduced) same-sex marriage? I’m assuming Labor thinks not. It’s one thing for the general public to support this issue, but the question is whether they value that over other issues that decide their vote? Maybe I’m assuming too much rationality though, it is of course possible that they are simply out of touch…
I don’t understand why they don’t just put this question to the electorate on a ballot at the next federal election. No political damage and it would be very embarrassing for the hardliner religious nuts if an overwhelming majority supported it.
I agree with you Matt. The electorate’s view on something isn’t as important as whether they are prepared to have it influence their vote. While most people are in favour of it, not many poeple (religious right aside) will vote just because of it. Both major parties know this. In the lead up to 2007, Labour, despite knowing thier supporters (and probably most of their MPs) at least don’t oppose gay marriage, they opposed it anyway to: a) neuter a potential wedge the coalition was crafting b) be safe in the knowledge that thier stance was not going to cause people to change their vote, or if it did, they would vote Green and preference back to the ALP. On the other hand, to go in favour of it, they would have handed the coalition some rhetorical oxygen to stir up the intolerant Australian underbelly as well as potentially stalled the drift of voters form the coalition to their side. The issue had a lot of traction in the US leading up to the 2004 presidential election and it certainly hurt Kerry’s chances.
Fredex, as well as the Pellites, the penticostal movement among other evangelical groups has done an incredibly good job of convincing politicians that their congregations are 100% swing voters and their stance on any one ‘values issue’ could swing several thousand votes in keys electorates. Whether that is actually true or not will not stop politicians who suspect it could make or break them saying what needs to be said so as not to alienate that sort of group.
Yay, stacked bar charts!
This is interesting compared to the polling on the same question that 538 have been blogging about in the US – we’re noticeably more progressive on this question than even the most progressive states in the US – about 55% of people polled in Massachusetts, for example, say that gays should be allowed to marry, and about 41% overall. Additionally, there’s a 538 post that suggests that if the question was “should they be prevented from marrying” rather than “should they be able to marry” the amount of support for gay marriage would be higher.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/how-to-get-63-of-americans-to-support.html
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/gay-rights-are-popular-in-many.html
I remember back to the very first episode of Q&A where Rudd got questioned about gay marriage and artfully dodged the issue. This is at a time when he still used phrases like “evidence driven policy”. I would have loved to have asked him this question..
“Since you’ve spoken about evidence driven policy, what evidence do you base your policy on gay marriage.. have you commissioned a study on contemporary attitudes to gay marriage, or is you evidence actually based on the lobbying of the Christian right minority?”
and a supplementary..
“What happened to open and transparent government?”
This is an issue that truly annoys me since Howard’s move to disallow same sex marriage overseas as evidence of a partnership for immigration purposes prejudiced a relationship I had at the time, and I was truly hoping for better with Rudd..
The problem is that the pollies know that the religious objectors to gay marriage will vote on that issue alone. The American religious right was willing to support a president who destroyed their country just to avoid abortion and gay marriage, so the depths of this committment can’t be underestimated. The majority who support gay marriage, even those who are gay, won’t necessarily change their vote on this issue. And since Australian politics is really just focus groups and press releases, that is pretty much that.
Unfortunately Altakoi is correct- but only partially – the (christian) religions have taken over the political parties – my own state MP is a case in point – looks all warm and fuzzy – but has believes in the literal interpretation of the bible -
Digby Hughes: No prizes for guessing who your local member is?
On the surface Oz looks to be heading in the same direction as the USA: the dread hand of religion is rammed down our collective throat. It is time people asked themselves why does ‘religion’ have rights other member’s of society are denied and receives taxpayers money just because it is a ‘religion’. You, Digby, go out into the street and knock over a little old lady kill her pet dog and steal her handbag subsequently it is discovered she had forty cents in the bag. And you will be dealt with by the full force of the law and the RSPCA.
On the other hand you could try bursting into tears and say “Your honour, I am a good catholic and have been raising money for the local St Patrick’s church re-building fund. I know the old lady to be an Atheist and a cheapskate. I knew she wouldn’t give me money for St Patrick’s church re-building fund so I did what the good lord would have wanted; I took it, in your name. I killed the dog because it was being starved and beaten so I thought to put it out of its misery. It was a very quick and merciful death.I believe god would have approved of my action.
You’d be guaranteed to get off Scot-free and having heroic dimensions.
I’ve no objection to same sex marriage, but I do ask the question….Why on earth would anyone want to?
Apologies for a somewhat frayed syntax. Time to have a glass of vino.
@Banana Quote “It’s ridiculous, in 2009, for us to discriminate against people on the basis of the gender they prefer.”
I respectively dispute that comment. You do not chose to be gay or have a preference.
Thats the argument the right wing nuts use. “Its a preference”. It’s not and I speak from experience.
That’s a more palatable way of putting it to the public, sure enough. But the fact is, discrimination on the basis of gender preference is also nonsense.
Scott – it’s true that sexuality is usually not a “choice”, but I don’t think we should give into the framing that “it’s only ok if they can’t help it”. It paints glbt people as the Other, and turns it into a technical issue instead of being about bigotry.
The religousness of the USA is overstated as it is for here. Exit polls in USA elections showed similar results as to here, infrequent church attendence, a very small minority regular church goers and an indifference to established religion.
Their power comes from the perception of being able to deliver power, which unfortunately as shown in NSW with Nile and Fielding in the Senate can be true.
Why do we accept being held to ransom by these types when we wouldn’t with other crazies.