A NEW Facebook page designed to lobby member for Calare John Cobb to support same-sex marriage has received about 2000 likes in the past six days.
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The Facebook page, I Do Support Marriage Equality in Calare, was established by Parkes residents Andrew Swan and Beau Newell and called on people to contact Mr Cobb’s office and express their support for same-sex marriage.
“We wanted to engage the community to let him (Mr Cobb) know a large number of his electorate support gay marriage,” Mr Swan said.
“We think he’s out of touch with what his electorate, and Australia, wants.”
Mr Swan said he hoped Mr Cobb would be swayed by feedback from his constituents and, at the very least, support a conscience vote on same-sex marriage.
Mr Swan said about 500 of the page’s supporters come from Orange, with 500 from Bathurst and the rest from a mix of other places including Parkes and Lithgow.
“We want to get as many people liking our page as we can, but when we set it up we didn’t expect it to go this viral,” he said.
“We were frustrated by his [Mr Cobb’s] lack of response and decided to harness the power of [social] media.
“It’s beyond time for this [marriage equality] to happen.”
Mr Swan said he and Mr Newell had requested a meeting with Mr Cobb to discuss marriage equality.
Mr Cobb was contacted for a response.
tracey.prisk@fairfaxmedia.com.au