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Loading ...Poll Shows Connecticut becoming comfortable with gay marriage
12.17.2008 3:19pm EST
(Hartford, Connecticut) A new statewide poll shows that most voters in Connecticut agree with the state Supreme Court ruling that opened up same-sex marriage.
The Quinnipiac University Poll found that 52 percent of voters believe the court made the right ruling. Thirty-nine percent disagreed with the court and nine percent were undecided.The poll of 1,445 registered voters was taken between Dec. 11-15 and has a margin 2.6 percentage point margin of error.
The survey also found that 61 percent of voters oppose any effort to amend the Connecticut constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Thirty-three percent said they would support an amendment.
The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled on Oct. 10 that same-sex couples have the right to marry. The state previously had allowed civil unions, but the court found that separate but equal was unconstitutional.
“Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice,” Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote in the ruling.
The ruling went into effect on Nov. 12.
Massachusetts is the only other state where same-sex marriage currently is legal.
Voters in California overturned a Supreme Court ruling in that state that struck down the ban on gay marriage. The voter initiative is currently being challenged in court on constitutional grounds.
A ruling on a similar case in Maryland could come at any time. Bills that would allow same-sex marriage are expected to be filed next year in about a half-dozen states.
This report only shows that the only thing that will cause a change in public opinion is change itself. If we wait around waiting for perfect conditions before we work for change, then we wont have any.
All sorts of polls, surveys and reports show that younger generations of Americans are supportive of gay rights. Yet we have a gay establishment that is so scared of backlash that they’re too timid to push for meaningful social and legislative change.
As we’ve seen in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Canada is that once we push for and achieve marriage equality then people learn to live with it.
Progress is never easy we have to deal with setbacks and backlash. But waiting around for history and the entire population to be on our side isn’t progress at all. And nothing changes people’s minds like change itself, so why don’t we just push full steam ahead on our “agenda” and marriage equality and let the chips fall where they may.
Not really true Rodney. Even going in it was clear that opposition to same-sex marriage was low in CT. In addition, it’s not as easy to make constitutional changes there as in CA. This makes it much harder to trigger a knee-jerk backlash because the process of reversing this requires calling an actual state constitutional convention and battling it out. That’s not the same as just asking people to push a button in a voting booth.
The real lesson is that we can make same-sex marriage stick *IF* we can get the buy-in of enough of the population. But we cannot take that for granted.
On a positive note, with the Dems in charge of Congress the FMA is never going to get out of committee so that’s not a big worry for now. If we can find a way to sway New Jersey and New York over to our side then I think we can get the rest of the Northeast to play along as well. That would put a sizable chunk of the nation’s population in states that have legalized same-sex marriage.
It should be sufficient to embarrass California back into the fold. Oregon and Washington are possible, but we need to keep in mind that it’s cities versus rural there. In Washington there is basically King County (includes Seattle) and there is the rest of the state, both on opposite political sides.
So I still think the Northeast is the better bet. A large contiguous band of high-population states with legal same-sex marriage (adjacent to Canada) would create a very clear social demonstration object that same-sex marriage does not result in the destruction of civilization.
That would serve to deflate a lot of the arguments against us. But we desperately need NY and NJ, and the Catholic Church is going to fight bitterly for both of them. So we can’t be cocky, arrogant or self-righteous. We need to leave that to them so that we can underline how bigoted they are.
Gay marriage is likely in New Jersey in 2009, making it gay marriage state #3.
Norway is gay marriage country #6 having passed gay marriage in 2008 and having it go into effect in 2009.
Is it time to embarass the catholic church, and focus the populace on their history of horrendous crimes over the ages, of which homophobia is just another part of their male dominance supporting mentality?
What really amazes me is how people go for this sort of thing hook, line and sinker. The church uses guilt, terrorism, a scam insurance policy, the setting up of themselves as a god to judge, etc. In the commercial world, they would be shut down in a second as a scam. But how do you crack the brainwashed. Though I do agree that younger people are more accepting in general, and the question is how to speed up the chain reaction. And win this war, and expose these people – the church heirarchy – for what they really are – a disgrace in the name of God.
I am not surprised by this poll. There is no way a Prop 8 type vote would pass in Massachusetts either. If California could have had a year under gay marriage the Prop 8 vote would never have passed. People wake up and realize the sky has not fallen and the gay couple next door is not a threat…..in fact, it’s utterly ridiculous to think of them as a threat.
The religious nuts had better enjoy their brief moment of pride…..they will will lose this fight.
Very true Rachel. What bothered me about the California ruling was the timing. If it had come out after the election, which was all but guaranteed high turnout because of the hot presidential race, then it would have had time to soak in and would probably have stuck even if they’d gotten a measure onto the ‘09 ballot.