All these political controversies can be illustrated by the personal stories of those affected, some more convincingly than others. That is how modern campaigning is conducted through the media, which delights in the personal stories at the centre of campaigns.

One of the strengths of the campaign for same-sex marriage has been its ability to personalise the issues at stake through stories of the anguish felt by same-sex couples whose wish to marry is denied by the status quo. Generally, these have been so-called ordinary people but sometimes they have been high-profile celebrities, right back to medical practictioner Kerryn Phelps and Jackie Stricker, when they were married overseas in 1998. Celebrities, including sports stars, are media magnets with an ability to attract public attention and perhaps even exert extra influence among their followers.

The personality politics of the campaign has long since spread beyond same-sex couples to heterosexual couples in remarkable ways. Brumbies and Wallabies rugby union star David Pocock and his partner attracted great publicity by pledging not to marry until same-sex marriage became legal. In return, a local Australian Christian Lobby leader, Nick Jensen, tried to counter Pocock's campaign by pledging that he and his wife would protest by divorcing if same-sex marriage was legalised.

But the campaign has not just been about individual personality politics. Big organisations also have begun to campaign strongly, though many have been led from the front by personally committed individuals.

An important element of the campaign for change has been led by a group of 20 of Australia's largest businesses, including Qantas and Telstra. The most high-profile figure in this campaign has been Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce.

Personal identity matters in the gay-rights campaign. This was evident, too, in the Australian Medical Association's recent announcement that it was backing same-sex marriage as a health issue, a position reportedly reached after 14 years of internal deliberations. This was a personal victory for Phelps, who became AMA president two years after her marriage to Stricker and had campaigned within the association and the wider medical community ever since.

Despite clear majority public opinion poll support for same-sex marriage, several other big organisations, led by the Catholic Church and the evangelical churches in the Australian Christian Lobby, have pushed back loudly. The Catholic hierarchy has tried to use the threat of commercial pressure, through withdrawing church buying power, to get the big corporates to pull back from public campaigning.

The churches have been supported by several federal ministers who opposed same-sex marriage, notably Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, who have accused business leaders of trying to bully the government to bring on a free vote in Parliament. Catholic bishops, too, have accused same-sex marriage campaigners of trying to restrict their freedom of speech through recourse to anti-discrimination mechanisms.

At the personal level, an opponent of same-sex marriage slammed Joyce in the face with a lemon meringue pie as he was giving a public speech to 500 businesspeople in Perth recently. The offender's clear intent was to make a public statement and to generate publicity.

That is the immediate background to the latest furore that has erupted over the announcement by another Western Australian, former international tennis great Margaret Court, that she would no longer fly Qantas as a personal protest against the airline's support for same-sex marriage.

Court's opposition to same-sex marriage was not news, as her religious conservatism has long been controversial within the elite tennis world, attracting the ire of gay tennis champions such as Martina Navratilova and Billie-Jean King. But her public boycott of Qantas was accompanied by a claim that the public debate was lopsided and supporters of same-sex marriage were bullied and persecuted.

In turn, celebrity author and columnist Peter Fitzsimons and ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr, a same-sex marriage champion, returned serve and reignited an older debate about whether the naming of Margaret Court Arena at Melbourne Park should be reconsidered in light of Court's conservative opinions.

Politics is a hard business for all involved publicly. That's the thinking behind the old saying: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." When the political relies on the personal, all campaigners open themselves to greater than usual personal opprobrium.

Anyone who takes a public personal stand on same-sex marriage is brave, especially if doing so opens up their personal identity – gay supporter, religious opponent or some other characteristic – to critical public gaze.

As the Coalition government has rejected a free vote and the Federal Parliament has rejected a plebiscite, there is little chance that the same-sex-marriage issue will be resolved in Australia soon, though the recent federal budget shows new directions are always possible. Around the world, steps towards legalising same-sex marriage are accumulating, most recently in Taiwan.

While the hiatus continues in Australia, accusations of media stunts, bullying and intimidation will continue to fly around at the highest levels. While this is difficult for many campaigners, it is hardest on the gay men and women with the greatest stake in the outcome.

John Warhurst is an emeritus professor of political science at the Australian National University. john.warhurst@anu.edu.au