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Same-sex marriage (SSM) & domestic partnerships in California

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2010 to now: Californians heavily support SSM

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Overview:

There are strong indicators of the increase in support for, and decrease in opposition to, same-sex marriage (SSM) in California.

One a paper by Jeffrey Lax and Justin Phillips of Columbia University titled "Gay rights in the states: Public opinion and policy responsiveness." It appeared in the American Political Science Review. ₁ This was a meta study of the level of support for same-sex marriage (SSM) in each state in the U.S. over the interval 1994 to 2009. Their findings for California indicate that suport for SSM has risen by 17 percentage points between 1994-5 and 2008-9. During the interval 2008-2009, it had achieved 50%. It would have presumably risen to slightly over 51% by the middle of 2010 when this essay was first posted and the following two polls were conducted.

Another indicator was a poll issued during 2010-JUL by Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), in anticipation of the ruling by District Judge Vaughn Walker on the constitutionality of Proposition 8. (That was the public initiative that banned SSMs in the state by a very slim majority.) Their poll was conducted during the latter half of 2010-JUN. Among their findings, they reported on the following two questions:

• When asked about Proposition 8, with the question: "How would you vote if you had to vote a similar Proposition tomorrow?" results were:

  • 51% would vote to allow same-sex marriage.
  • 45% to keep same-sex marriage illegal -- that is, unavailable.
  • 4% Didn’t know or refused to answer.
    
    
• When asked how should gay relationships be handled, preferences were:
  • 42% favored allowing them to marry;
  • 31% favored allowing them to enter civil unions but not marry;
  • 24% wanted no legal recognition of gay relationships at all;
  • 3% don't know or refuse to answer. _2,3
    
    

A third indicators is a series of polls by the Field Research Corporation. They have been sampling public opinion on SSM since 1977. At that time, only 28% of voters favored it. This support has almost doubled by 2010 to 51%, and has approached 60% by 2012-FEB:

Field Poll results from 2003 to 2012-FEB

Topics covered in this section:

• State trends. Public Religion Research Institute (PPRI) 2010 poll
  
  
• PPRI poll continued
  
  
• Field Research Corporation polls. Webmaster's comments.

References used:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

1. Jeffrey Lax and Justin Phillips, "Gay rights in the states: Public opinion and policy responsiveness," American Political Science Review, Volume 103 (3), 2009.
2. "Religion, Proposition 8, and Same-Sex Marriage in California. New Poll: Only One-in-Five Californians Say Proposition 8 'Good Thing', Majority Now Support Same-Sex Marriage," Public Religion Research Institute, 2010-JUN, at: http://www.publicreligion.org/research/
3. "2010 California Same-sex Marriage Survey," Public Religious Research Institute, 2010-JUN, at: http://www.publicreligion.org/
4. "Release #2349: Voter sentiment remains on the side of allowing same-sex marriage in California," Field Research Corporation 2010-JUL-20, at: http://field.com/fieldpollonline/ This is a PDF file.
5. Mark DiCamillo and Mervin Field, "Big increase in california voters who favor allowing same-sex marriage," The Field Poll, 2012-FEB-29, at http://field.com/  This is another acurrsed PDF file.

Portions copyright © 2010 to 2012 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Original posting: 2010-JUL-30
Latest update: 2012-MAR-01
Author: B.A. Robinson

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