Equal Love held a rally for marriage equality in the centre of Perth for the third weekend in a row, as the long three month campaign ahead of the government’s postal survey gets underway.

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High school student Oscar Kaspi-Crutchett spoke to the crowd about his passion for seeing the nation’s marriage laws changed.

While they will most likely not be able to take part in the postal survey on marriage equality in September, young Australians are overwhelmingly supportive of marriage equality.

Kaspi-Crutchett and his friends created an online group Students for Marriage Equality Australia. The group’s Facebook page attracting 1,400 likes within the first few days of it going live.

Connecting high schools students across Australia, they team have created their own flyers promoting marriage equality and have been hitting the ground handing them out at train stations in Perth.

Speaking at the rally in Perth on Saturday Kaspi-Crutchett said while it was common for University students to get involved in politics, there was less opportunity for high school aged students.

“I’ve noticed there’s a real lack of organisation, especially between high school students.” Caspi-Crutchett told the crowd. “There’s this idea that people my age aren’t political, aren’t caring and aren’t really interested in the bigger political issues.”

“I want to tell politicians that they are wrong, we do care, and we demand equal rights and we’re not afraid to fight for it.”

Also speaking at the rally were The Greens’ Alison Xamon, Petrina Harley from the Socialist Alliance, Sam Cavallaro from Equal Love and transgender rights activist JJ Blackburn.

Ahead of the rally, Sam Cavallaro from Equal Love said the group had received a high level of support since the postal survey on marriage equality was announced.

“The response has been overwhelming.” Cavallaro said.”We put a call out over Facebook for people to show their support and the people of Perth have come out to the streets in droves.”

“People are fired up and want to help the campaign.”

Equal Love is planning on holding a large scale rally on 7 October, which will be held in Russell Square in Northbridge. Dubbed the ‘Yes Festival’ the pro-marriage equality group hopes to attract thousands of people to the large scale rally.

Cavalarro said the positive response that the group has received to their rallies stands in contrast to concerns about the LGBTI community experiencing negative consequences from the debate.

“In many ways, this vibrant response stands in contrast to the affect predicted by groups, such as the Labor Party, that the plebiscite would be harmful to the LGBTI community.” Equal Love said in their statement.

“People are annoyed that they have to go through this shemozzle and that the politicians didn’t just pass marriage equality in parliament but I think that the LGBTI and wider community are becoming stronger throughout this campaign.” Cavallaro said.

“We are able to ignore the hateful things that people like Margaret Court and Eric Abetz say because out on the street we know that most people aren’t just on the right side of history, they want to be active in fighting for it.”

Graeme Watson, images: Leigh Hill