Dear Alan B.,

Thank You for sharing your feelings and
for explaining things.
I can't disagree with anything you wrote.

Quite predictable that we (majority?) old-middle aged blokes of OLO seem to be voicing majority "No".

Young people, who seem to be majority "Yes", have to tick those strange snail-mail forms and stickem in those odd red letterboxes.

The whole snail-mail voting method is looking like a cultural approach sure to minimise young progressive participation.

Reckon, unless there is more than a 60% "Yes" vote (nationally) our politicians will do nothing. The SSM issue will go the way of the Republic vote issue.

plantagenet raises the valid point that the whole process of the postal survey seems to have been designed to 'minimise' the response from younger people more used to responding to surveys online than actually using the postal system. That can be extended further and the whole concept is open to corruption...and as has been reported surveys have been offered for sale and others have been destroyed, or lost (even stolen), due to poor delivery practices.

As such, any result can be directly refuted by the 'losers' as not having any integrity. And they'd have a valid point. The government has created an 'unholy' mess and wasted $122 million going about it when all that is needed is simple legislative change. They have also created a precedent that may have adverse future ramifications.

minotaur:

A 'simple legislative change' that has cost years and years of debate and lobbying and a Senate enquiry? There has been nothing simple about it. It is only simple for those who think everyone should agree with their opinion.

Minotaur,

In relation to 18c, you must have dozed off and missed the court proceedings against Andrew Bolt; you must have been still asleep for the AHRC handling of the QUT students, when it could as easily have dismissed the allegations as trivial, as the court later found they were.

But there's no excuse for claiming that restrictions on free speech "are similar to what applies with election campaigns."

The Turnbull government's Orwellian "safeguards" go further than those required at elections: https://marriagesurvey.abs.gov.au/safeguards

The "safeguards" come with a long list of how to complain, which looks like urging to me.

From Senator Cormann's second reading speech:

"We certainly call on all Australians to participate in this debate with courtesy and respect.
"However, the government acknowledges that we cannot guarantee that all Australians will at all times express
their opinions on that basis.
"For this reason, the bill will also establish an offence for grievous conduct against those participating in the
debate, or against those who may hold strong views on the survey question.
"The bill contains provisions against vilification, intimidation and threat to cause harm, as well as for hindering or
interfering with a person in making a response, or discriminating against a person for making a donation relating
to the marriage law survey.
"Importantly, and I stress this point, merely expressing a view about the marriage law survey question does not
trigger the offence provisions against vilification, intimidation or the threat of harm. The conduct would have to
be vilification, intimidation or threat to cause harm."

GetUp! dropped its petition, with thousands of signatories, seeking to have Dr Pansy Lai deregistered. She also was "inundated" with telephone and social media threats. Ten days later they might all have been charged.

On the other hand, there's been nothing similar, as far as I can recall, from anybody on the No side.

You've also missed the point that the survey result is expected to lead to further legislation that nobody being surveyed has seen.

I just voted NO, and that is the end of it as far as I'm concerned. However, I will say that children need a mother and father, and two people of the same sex bringing up children is ridiculous, disgraceful, self-indulgent on the part of the 'adults' concerned, and a tragedy for any children brought up in a warped, same sex relationship. God help the poor little buggers.