Opponents are jumping onto a single poll which shows support for marriage equality has fallen since June, but that there is still a majority in favour. Today’s New Zealand Herald has the frontpage headline “gay marriage shock,” pointing to its survey showing 48 per cent of those polled said marriage should remain between a man and a woman. It says that’s an increase of 7.5 percentage points from a poll last June The number of people who supported a law change fell four per cent, but still outnumbered the opponents by a small margin. Bob McCoskrie from Family First says claims it proves politicians have no mandate to “change the longstanding definition of marriage”. He claims that’s because we have got past the slogans of ‘marriage equality’ and ‘discrimination’ and the debate is now centred around facts. However marriage equality advocates are blaming misinformation campaigns from the likes of McCoskrie. The Bill’s sponsor Louisa Wall says the poll shows a majority of New Zealanders still in support of same-sex marriage, "despite the opposition spending what seems vast amounts of money on an active and negative campaign built on fear and misinformation".
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 26th March 2013 - 9:41am