But their fears turned out to be unfounded.

"We’ve never had anything major happen to us in Kalgoorlie, which I understand is a unique situation and not consistent with a lot of other people’s experiences," Foulkes-Taylor said.

"For me, friends have always been supportive. In terms of the wider circle of people I interact with, they’ve said 'You seem really happy at the moment, in this relationship'. And I am."

That was before the postal survey on same-sex marriage kicked off — and the couple found themselves at the centre of a grassroots campaign to counter the mass of "no" material being distributed in Kalgoorlie.



In the days after the government announced the survey, and attention of the national media was firmly on same-sex marriage, the couple viscerally felt increased scrutiny on their relationship during a run-of-the-mill trip to Woolies.



"I noticed that so many people were aware of us. I felt really uncomfortable – it’s obviously a place we go and get groceries quite often — and for the first time, I noticed people were checking us out, second glances," Foulkes-Taylor said.

"It was really weird and uncomfortable. We got the basics and got out of there."

Then flyers from the "no" campaign group the Coalition for Marriage started arriving in their letterbox, and in that of their friends and family.



"When I was growing up in Kalgoorlie I didn’t know being gay was an option," Foulkes-Taylor said. "I just had no exposure to it. My parents are not super conservative or anything, but there was just no one in Kalgoorlie who knew about it."



"If I got [the Coalition for Marriage] flyer in my letter box when I was a kid and starting to understand things... I would have thought to myself, 'I will keep this buried for a bit longer, this is a bad thing'."



Nothing had arrived from the "yes" campaign — so Foulkes-Taylor, who works for the WA government and is a member of the Kalgoorlie branch of the Labor party, decided to take matters into their own hands.