Marriage Equality Blues: Method and Mess around the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey

Abstract

This article examines the attitudes and experiences of participants in the 2017 Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey through an interdisciplinary collaboration joining insights from the humanities and social sciences. Prior analyses of the Survey results, both in academic scholarship and media commentary, have focused on particular social characteristics of those who supported or opposed the legalisation of same-sex marriage. Building on this foundation, we analyse the differential attitudes and experiences of heterosexual and non-heterosexual participants who voted–or declined to vote–in the Survey. Our analysis draws on original data from a representative survey of Australian voters conducted in 2019 in which we asked participants to reflect on their reasons for voting, their experience of the campaign and their attitudes towards the result. Our data indicate that heterosexual and non-heterosexual voters had distinct and different experiences of the Survey and were motivated to participate for different reasons. The statistical evidence also prompts further reflection on qualitative and quantitative methodologies and the role they play in describing social experience.