Single polls about same-sex marriages (SSM) & civil unions

From 1988 to 2013: Support, opposition,
inevitability, and whether SSM is a civil right.

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On this web site, "SSM" is an acronym for Same-Sex Marriage.
"LGBT" is an acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender/Transsexual.

2006-MAY-08: A Gallup Organization poll:

	On extending marriage to include homosexual couples: 58% are opposed. 39% are in favor 3% are undecided or did not respond.
	Gallup asked a more precise question in addition to the above. They substituted "same-sex couples" for "homosexuals". Opposition dropped from 58% to 56%. That is probably because "homosexual" is a snarl word within some people. Also, since same-sex couples includes bisexuals, opinion may differ.
	Other data: Among Republicans, 66% favor the Federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (FMA) and 79% oppose "gay marriage." Among Democrats, 55% oppose the FMA and 53% support "gay marriage."   Among women ages 18 to 49, 55% favor "gay marriage." Among women aged 50 and older, 62% oppose it.   Among men 18 to 49, 67% oppose it. Among men aged 50 and older, 64% oppose it. This is the first time we have seen a decrease in opposition with age.   Among adults who attend religious services weekly, 77% oppose "gay marriage." Among adults who seldom or never attend services, 51% favor it. 1,2

2006-MAR: Poll by Angus Reid Global Scan:

This poll was taken among adults in California. The found that a substantial majority of California residents favored legal registration of loving, committed, same-sex relationships, by half disapproved of allowing same-sex couples to marry.

When asked whether the state should recognize same-sex relationships, or merely consider them as roommates, their response was spit in a three-way tie:

	32% felt that they should be allowed to marry.
	32% felt that they should be allowed to form civil unions or domestic partnerships, but not be allowed to marry.
	32% felt that their relationships should not be legally recognized at all.
	4% were unsure or did not respond.

This is a nightmare scenario for any politician: three options with identical support.

When allowed only the choice between two alternatives, the results were:

	51% oppose the availability of same-sex marriage.
	43% favor the availability of same-sex marriage.
	6% were unsure or did not respond.

It is worth noting that in the year 2000, Californians were able to vote on Proposition 22 which banned same-sex marriage. It was approved by a 61.4% majority. At first glance, this would indicate a 10 percentage point drop in opposition to same-sex marriage. However, the two numbers represent different populations. The Proposition would include some individuals who were so opposed to SSM that they made a point of turning out to vote for the proposition. On the other hand, this survey selected people at random. Also, the proposition was called a "Defense of Marriage Act" which may have biased the voters in favor of the proposition and against SSM. Also, the wording of the proposition question and the survey question were different. All three factors would tend to bias results. We hope that Angus Reid will repeat the survey with the same questions in the future, so that trends will be detectable. ₃

SSM trend from 1988 to 2011:

Nate Silver maintains a "FiveThirtyEight: Nate Silver's Political Calculus" blog in the New York Times. Its mission is:

"... to help New York Times readers cut through the clutter of this data-rich world. The blog is devoted to rigorous analysis of politics, polling, public affairs, sports, science and culture, largely through statistical means. In addition, FiveThirtyEight provides forecasts of upcoming presidential, Congressional, and gubernatorial elections through the use of its proprietary prediction models. ... It is produced in conjunction with The Times’s graphic and interactive journalists and its team of political editors, correspondents and polling experts."

The name comes from the number of electors in the United States electoral college. He is an unusually accomplished statistician. According to Wikipedia, "Silver correctly predicted the winner of 49 of the 50 states in the presidential election, as well as every Senate race in 2008." ₅

During 2010-AUG, Nate Silver's blog on his FiveThirtyEight.com web site showed the following graph of public support of and opposition to SSM. ₄ It was the first graph that we had seen that showed those the two sides to be evenly matched. He plotted all available polling data, having obtained much of his data from www.pollingreport.com. He also included data from the General Social Survey, which started asking about same-sex marriage back in 1988:

₄

He used a locally weighted scatterplot smoothing (LOESS) analysis -- a standard method of analyzing data -- that was first developed by W.S. Cleveland in 1979. He noted that the long-term rate of increase of support for SSM had been between 1 and 1.5 percentage points a year, until recently. This is similar to the rate of increase in support for inter-racial marriages back in the late 20th century. However, from 2009-MAY to 2010-AUG, support surged ahead with about a four percentage point gain.

This was apparently caused by a drop in the "don't know" and "refuse to answer" numbers. He speculated that the surge may have been related to various LGBT-positive groups "... calling for full equity in marriage rights, rather than finding civil unions to be an acceptable compromise."

Later, in a similar article on 2011-APR-20, Nate re-plotted the data showing data from a CNN poll, which showed 51% support and 47% opposed. He wrote that this was the fourth credible poll since 2010-AUG:

"... to show an outright majority of Americans in favor of gay marriage. That represents quite a lot of progress for supporters of same-sex marriage. Prior to last year, there had been just one survey — a Washington Post poll conducted in April 2009 — to show support for gay marriage as the plurality position, and none had shown it with a majority."

₅

A slim majority of voters in two public initiatives -- one in California during 2008 and the other in Maine during 2009 -- were opposed to SSM. However, Nate speculates, that if the votes were held today, both initiatives would probably approve SSM. He further speculates that if the current surge in support for SSM were to continue at the same rate, supporters would outnumber opponents by about 56% to 40% in the general population by election day in 2012-NOV. This would probably be well beyond the ability of investment in a fear-based TV ad campaign to reverse. He comments:

"... Republican candidates, who have placed less emphasis on gay marriage in recent years, probably cannot expect their opposition to it to be a net electoral positive for them except in select circumstances. ... this does put Republicans in a tricky position. Their traditional position on gay marriage is becoming less popular. But to the extent they disengage from the issue, they may lose even more ground. One way to read the trends of the past few years is that we have passed an inflection point wherein it is no longer politically advantageous for candidates to oppose same-sex marriage, which in turn softens opposition to it among the general public, creating a sort of feedback loop and accelerating the trend." ₆

The trend towards more support for, and less opposition to, SSM continues into 2013. In 2012-NOV, referendums in Maine, Maryland, and Washington State legalized SSM in those states, and a referendum in Minnesota failed to add a clause to the state constitution to prohibit SSM.

2013-MAR: A remarkable LifeWay poll on whether homosexuality is a civil right, the inevitability of SSM, and discrimination against LGBTs:

LifeWay Christian Resources is an arm of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), which is one of the most active faith groups opposing SSM. The SBC actively discriminates against women, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender persons and transsexuals.

They conducted a random survey of 1,191 American adults between 2012-NOV-14 and 16. The margin of error is ±2.9 percentage points. ₇

Results were:

Among born-again, evangelical or fundamentalist Christians, only 50% agree that SSM is inevitable. Women, persons with college degrees, and young adults aged 18 to 29 are more likely to agree that homosexuality is a civil rights issue.

Participants in the survey were also asked whether individuals and companies should be allowed to discriminate with impunity against same-sex couples or on the basis of a person's sexual preference if SSM becomes legal in their state:

Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, said:

"Clearly, Americans believe the prerogative exists for individuals such as clergy or photographers to deny services for same-sex marriage. However, the level of agreement changes with scenarios that could be interpreted as more basic rights such as housing and employment. ... While a majority of Americans categorize homosexuality as a civil rights issue like age, race and gender, and almost two-thirds think legalization of same-sex marriage in the U.S. is evitable, the research does show lines and divisions on these issues clearly exist in our country." ₈

Requiring clergy to officiate at SSMs is not really an option in the U.S. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees a wall of separation between religion and government. This is often referred to as separation of church and state. Thus, religious groups and clergy can freely discriminate in deciding which couples they will marry. Faith groups have discriminated against interracial couples, couples who are judged to be not sufficiently mature, couples where one partner was of another denomination or religion, and -- in the case of the Roman Catholic Church -- against couples where one partner was physically disabled. To our knowledge, no member of the clergy has been sued or charged with a crime for this form of discrimination.

Webmaster's comment:

The group that maintains this web site do not normally engage in speculation. However we suspect that the surge in support for SSM may have been caused by two recent factors:

• Debate on the bill to initiate a repeal process of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy (DADT). The bill was signed into law during 2010-DEC. It set up a process that might well terminate the DADT policy sometime in 2011.
  
  
• The signing of an executive order by President Obama during 2010-APR requiring most hospitals to end discrimination against loving, committed same-sex relationships in their visitation and health-care decisions.

Both of these topics had wide support by the general public, and may have initiated a great deal of discussion and thinking by the general public about equal rights for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender persons (LGBT). This serious consideration may have influenced public support for same-sex marriage.

References:

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

1. Michael Foust, "Gallup poll: 58 percent oppose 'gay marriage,' half support amend.," Baptist Press, 2006-MAY-22, at: http://www.bpnews.net/
2. Gail Mathabane, "Gays face same battle interracial couples fought," USA Today, 2004-JAN-25.
3. "Californians Do Not Support Gay 'Marriage,' Says Poll," 2006-MAR-24, LifeSiteNews.com
4. Nate Silver, "Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage Appears to Shift at Accelerated Pace," FiveThirtyEight.com, 2010-AUG-12, at: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
5. "FiveThirtyEight," Wikipedia, as at: 2011-MAY-18, at: http://en.wikipedia.org/
6. Nate Silver, "Gay Marriage Opponents Now in Minority," FiveThirtyEight.com, 2011-APR-20, at: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
7. Russ Rankin, "Research: Same-Sex Marriage Is Civil Rights Issue, Americans Say," LifeWay, 2013-MAR-13, at: http://www.lifeway.com/
8. The term "sexual preference" is still often used by religious and social conservatives in place of "sexual orientation." Persons with a bisexual orientation -- those who are sexually attracted to both men and women -- often have a sexual preference. But persons with a homosexual orientation do not have a preference; they are attracted only to the opposite gender. Persons with a heterosexual orientation do not have a preference; they are attracted only to the same gender. Some persons with a bisexual orientation do not have a preference; they are equally attracted to men and women. This web site recommends that "sexual orientation" be used. Unfortunately, the term "preference" implies that a person is capable of changing their sexual orientation, whereas "orientation" implies that one cannot change the gender to which a person is attracted. Thus the choice of terms strongly implies a belief concerning the nature of heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality.

Copyright © 1996 to 2013 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally published: 1996-SEP-25
Latest update: 2013-MAR-17
Author: B.A. Robinson

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