Regardless of your position on the question being put in the marriage equality survey next month, it is an opportunity for engagement that reinforces your local connection.
You could declare your position and promote that in your business. While I expect that would scare some newsagents, the challenge is to believe in your opinion enough to leverage your business to support the opinion.
You could host a survey party where people come in and complete the survey and have a bit of a part to boot.
At the very least you could ensure people are enrolled to vote, although the deadline is today for that. Click here to go to the AEC website where people can check. Offer to do this for them.
Alternatively, without declaring a position, you could establish a noticeboard in your business as a place for respectful statements for the yes and no positions. You could remove any statement or poster that you consider to be disrespectful or hurtful. However, I would argue that any statement against voting yes is hurtful given the evidence form the US and elsewhere where same sex marriage has been legalised … suicide among gay people has declined.
Engaging on an issue like this shows your business as engaged with the community. Sure, there is a risk of alienating either side, or both. However, not engaging shows your local business as not being engaged on what is being reported as the biggest single issue in the country this decade. An engaged business is a healthy and confident business.
Here is the post from Facebook last night that I did for one of my businesses. I used the same text with only a suburb change for each. The reaction overnight has been terrific.
Hi Mark
no matter what your position how can this help but put people offside?
Getting your business involved in any politics is just not a good idea, ever.
Andrew, the action from customers to our facebook post has been terrific publicly and through private messages. People like our reminder and they like that we are not overtly taking a stand.
Brett, retail businesses are involved in politics everyday with banter across the counter.
spotify keeps reminding people to enroll and most of my customers look upset. we are in very conservative area
Eric, pay for Spotify premium!
I will vote yes, but I won’t discuss it over the counter with my customers
Then Mark R you are literally a hypocrite.
We have to be prepared to discuss it, civilly and with respect. It reflects our humanity.
far more important things to worry about in our country then this crap
You selfish ignorant asshole.
Jeff,
are you applying the George Brandis test of free speech, “I have the right to be a rude ignorant pig and offend some one on any grounds. If I don not have that right then I do not have free speech”. Mark at 8 is spot on.
Great point Mark. I posted this on Facebook with great feedback instore and a good click through rate. I have an older, affluent suburb and guess what, people are still gay. They still have gay friends and family that they love and want to receive equal rights.
We live in a democracy that has become so caught up with being politically correct for fear of condemnation that nobody has an discussions anymore.
Legalising gay marriage is not just about having a wedding, it is basic legal and economic rights. It’s the person you love being able to make life and death decisions on your behalf should you be in an accident or being able to plan your funeral without having to prove they are authorised.
My business is a small business and proud of it. Being able to have discussion and building relationships with my customers is what sets us apart from the corporations and IMO the only saving grace we have as online retail takes hold over the coming years.
Vote NO
The freedoms and levels of equality we enjoy in this country were established by brave people prepared to speak out about it. This is yet another step in the equality journey. I say vote yes and say it out loud with pride and conviction. It’ll make the country a better place and equality protects us all.
What a load of preppy bullshit
Andrew T, you seem to have a lot in common with the “No” side, a total inability to articulate a point of view. Random ejaculations do not an argument make.
I have a gay step-grandson who is a fine young man. I have a gay step daughter, I often disagree with, but never over her sexuality.
I do not initiate discussions on the subject, but when a customer raises it I will discuss rationally and do not attempt to hide my views. I have devout Roman Catholic customers who know my views and accept them.
Allowing marriage equality in no way harms me, it enhances the community. And yes, I use the word marriage deliberately, as it belongs to us all, it is not a religious term, it is a legal term.
Now, may I respectfully suggest you crawl back the the 1950’s, I am sure you’d be much more at home there.
Andrew T whoever you are i’m not sure if you posts are just to entertain your little mind, whatever your motivation is, it just shows what a horrible person you are.
Vote NO. You left wingers must be beside yourselves with anxiety.
David@anglevalenews
You’ve let yourself down badly my dear. You attack me for not articulating a PC argument and you finish your hissy fit argument with a demeaning comment. You’re typical of the snowflakes that are now trilling your opinion.
Stay out of politics and religion. There is no upside from being labelled as a supporter of whichever side wins but potentially much downside from customers in the losing camp.
Vote Yes.
Andrew T, the only snowflakes are those who melt at the thought of equality, that maybe a man might love another man, and that harms no one, except the troglodytes still living in the fifties.
I don’t see that as demeaning, I see it as an accurate assessment.
Now, let’s see you show the courage of your convictions by following my lead and post some identifying information.
I am proud to own my opinions, others sit at home, twitching the curtains, clutching at their pearls, and hoping nobody identifies them for the ill informed bigots they are.
David@anglevalenews your comment ‘Marriage equality in no way harms me’, in everyday language expresses the underlying principle that we should be debating, but it seems to have been missing from both sides of the debate in the media. The idea that I,as an Australian, can do anything that does not harm others is something I have believed all my life and up to now, I’ve thought that every Australian did as well.
We should be really concerned for our future in such a diverse country, if we can’t agree on this fundamental principle. Thank you for raising the point.
Andrew is a troll and has never offered anything constructive here. His main goal appears to be to offend.
As to the original post, here is an update – we have only received positive feedback online and in-store from the engagement in each pf the shops and on their Facebook pages. The approach we took was much appreciated.
Now that the registration deadline has passed, I will think about how to engage in the next phase of this survey.
Whilst I will not make an overt statement in my business, I think it relevant to understand this current discussion. That way you can better relate to your customers. – PS. Vote YES. @Andrew T – You are entitled to your views however I think in expressing any view a little respect and tact is required.
More than a little respect and tact Joe, complete respect and tact – from all sides.
Classic left wing argument. Your opinion is the only one that matters. If you don’t agree with it you’re a homophobic rascist bigot. You are bullies that spit the dummy when it doesn’t suit your agenda. I’m surprised good old fletch even lets my comments through as anyone who disagrees with his comments gets a caning.
Andrew, comment ts are not moderated, you know that.
Plenty of people disagree with me and continue to get terrific airtime here, because comments are not moderated. If I disagree, so be it. My opinion is as valid as anyone’s.
What is not valid is puerile, rude and deliberately harmful comments from people who don’t have the guts to identify with their comments.
Andrew T……what do you do for a living?
I’ve posted here before my full name, occupation and location. Calm down sweetheart
Andrew T is probably the bloke who thought it was a smart move to send letters to newsagents about our gracious host here. Letters that were vile and bigoted, and filed appropriately.
Andrew T could well be the father of the child who is bullying my 9 year old grand daughter because she has two mummies. That sort of attitude is not innate in a 9 year old, its is learned in the “home”.
Perhaps Andrew T was like me at 18, hit on by a 30 year old homosexual, but whereas I brushed it off and remained friends with that man, poor Andrew T thinks that it was something wrong in him that made another man fancy him.
Like all bullies, Andrew T cries that he is the victim, that he is being bullied by Mark because his comments are allowed to appear.
Andrew T is just a sad sack who feels so oppressed by the cards life has dealt him that he can only make himself feel big by tearing down others.
Where he sows hate, we show love; where he abuses, we support; when we go to bed at night we sleep well, he lies awake, chewing the pillow and wondering who he can hate on next.
To quote the current US President, “Sad”.
Do you know what is really sad? The whittling of freedoms under Trump.
Thank God that we still have progressive cities like San Francisco.
Warning this link is NOT WORK SAFE
http://www.zombietime.com/up_your_alley_2015/
Love is Love
I notice that none of the whingers here have demanded the true identity of your fellow whinger “Big Oil”
David@30
Sorry darling but I’m not the author of your fabulous newsletter.
Like most closeted homosexuals you have to either ‘come out’ or continue to live an unfair lie. Life is too short.
I’m sure you remained ‘firm friends’ with the 30 year old homosexual that hit on you when you were 18. It’s obvious from your shrill prose that is where you hang you hat. And kudos to you.
For the record, it’s OK to vote NO. The sky won’t fall in, same sex couples can still enjoy a wonderful life together without hijacking the Marriage Act
You need to worry more about SA electricity supply than wringing your little hands over SSM
.
Just as it is OK to vote YES, the sky won’t fall in, dogs won’t marry cats, and bigots will still be allowed to be bigots.
BTW, the Marriage Act was hijacked by your boy wonder, Little Johnnie Howard, with no electoral mandate, no plebiscite, no postal vote, just Little Johnnies sayso.
Andrew T, the rainbow is coming, the gays are riding Unicorns, and yes, you will come out at last, as it always seems those who shout the loudest are those with a guilty little secret.
You can either join us in acceptance, or stand outside, peering in, while we celebrate the victory of light over dark, of knowledge over fear, of rationality over irrational hatred.
I think you are just in need of a hug. 🙂
The Conservatives, religious anti SSM and just plain anti SSM have not got their chance for free speech as they see it. However common decency manners and respect for all has been trashed. This so called Postal Survey is going be a very damaging thing to our society. It would appear that if the survey does pass the High Court and goes ahead we will have a circus on the same scale and effect on society as Brexit in Pommy Land.
Once a again our Politicians have failed to do their elected and instead sown this dogs breakfast for all to sup at.
Meanwhile back on earth, rather than debate SSM on a Newsagency Blog, I am thinking about the commercial benefits of SSM to my business. This should interest all small businesses. Hopefully suppliers are already thinking of this! Off to review my cards & gifts!
Joe in my view happier people are always more likely to open their wallets.
Joe I have had discussions with several suppliers on the commercial side. They are ready to roll.
It’s OK to vote NO
That’s not what this post is about.
Andrew darling you are a creep
Hugs all round for Andrew T…………big old boy ones.