Federal MPs have been the target of campaigns run by lobby groups supporting and opposing same-sex marriage.

The fight started after a motion was passed in parliament last year calling on all federal MPs to go into their communities to gauge opinions on the issue.

Since then, both the Australian Christian Lobby and Australian Marriage Equality have published links on their websites allowing people to directly email their local MP.

Calare MP John Cobb confirmed he had been receiving emails sent from both websites, and said the vast majority were opposed to changing legislation to formally recognise same-sex marriage.

“I think it’s running about 90-10 in favour of not changing the Marriage Act,” he said.

“I guess I’m with the majority of my electorate on this in that I believe marriage was developed between a man and a woman primarily for the benefit of children.”

Mr Cobb said none of the responses he had received opposed the recognition of same-sex relationships, but said recognising same-sex marriage was a step too far.

“I would have no problem with (same-sex couples) having some sort of yet-to-be developed recognition of their status and I’m totally against them being discriminated against in any financial way, but marriage was developed for men and women,” he said.

He did not support the idea of a referendum asking the whole population if they supported same-sex marriage.

Meanwhile, Australian Marriage Equality convenor Alex Greenwich said there had been a good response on their website from people who supported same-sex marriage.

He said more than 12,000 people across Australia had emailed their local MP through the AME website since the link was established two months ago.

But of those, just 86 were within the Calare electorate and 37 came from the Bathurst region.

“Emailing MPs is just one part of our campaign to see same-sex marriages recognised,” Mr Greenwich said.

“We have also run marriage equality workshops in major cities and we will now be moving on to regional centres and places like Bathurst.”

Mr Greenwich said repeated polls showed there was strong support across the nation for same-sex marriage.

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