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Loading ...Survey examines role of economics, faith in Prop 8
12.04.2008 12:45pm EST
(San Francisco, California) Voters’ economic status and religious convictions played a greater role than race and age in determining whether they supported the Nov. 4 ballot measure outlawing same-sex marriage in California, a new poll shows.
The ban drew its strongest support from both evangelical Christians and voters who didn’t attend college, according to results released by the Public Policy Institute of California.Age and race, meanwhile, were not as strong factors as assumed. According to the poll, 56 percent of voters over age 55 and 57 percent of nonwhite voters cast a yes ballot for the gay marriage ban.
People who identified themselves as practicing Christians were highly likely to support the constitutional amendment, with 85 percent of evangelical Christians, 66 percent of Protestants and 60 percent of Roman Catholics favoring it.
The poll also showed that the measure got strong backing from voters who did not attend college (69 percent), voters who earned less than $40,000 a year (63 percent) and Latinos (61 percent).
The proposition, which passed with 52 percent of the vote, overturned the state Supreme Court’s May decision legalizing gay marriage in California. The measure inserts language into the constitution limiting marriage to one man and one woman.
The poll found that, overall, 48 percent of voters oppose the idea of making gay marriage legal. Forty-seven percent support it, while 5 percent are undecided.
The results mirror previous PPIC polls from the last three years, suggesting that the $73 million spent for and against the measure did not do much to change public attitudes on allowing gay couples to wed, said survey director Mark Baldassare.
“At no point in time, before or after the election, did we have a majority of Californians saying they supported gay marriage,” Baldassare said. “My takeaway from this is that until there is a major shift in public opinion one way or another, it’s going to be another issue where voters are deeply divided.”
Geoffrey Kors, executive director of the gay rights group Equality California, said the PPIC poll demonstrates that same-sex marriage advocates “need to make inroads in every category. If 2 percent of voters had voted differently, we would have had a different result,” he said.
The poll was based on a phone survey of 2,003 California voters in the Nov. 4 election who were interviewed from Nov. 5-6. The sampling error was plus or minus 2 percentage points.
A separate poll by Harris Interactive for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation released on Wednesday found nationally three-quarters of Americans favor either marriage or domestic partnerships/civil unions for gay and lesbian couples.
Shai,
By your name, I assume you’re Jewish, as well as your knowledge of “Gentleman’s agreement.”
Are you a Hassid as well? If so, I apologize for the glib advice.
WAY TO GO FRANK!
Straight = Hate
Did I read this article correctly? Is it possible to be college educated AND evangelical? OOOOhhhh…”faith-based studies” from Jesus U.
It seems to me that 56% over age 55 and 57% nonwhite are MAJORITIES so I totally disagree with the analysis..in fact they are bigger majorities than the margin of victory.
This poll clearly shows:
-Religious nut jobs are easily led to the trough.
-uneducated are ignorant…but likely also in the above category, which the writer should have addressed, if the data were available.
-Non-whites contributed to our loss…their margin is ACRETIVE to the result, not something Mr. Withers has seemed to be willing to admit.
-and so to with the elderly..but no surprise.
But one point that needs to be made that isn’t: we DO NOT have to convince people we are “OK”..how insulting. We should work towards more visibility driving acceptance, but I’m not willing to be Mr. StepandFetchIt for the religious bigots, agreeing that until they accept me I can’t have equality.
WE DO NOT NEED THEIR ACCEPTANCE! WE HAVE OUR CONSTITUTIONS TO PROTECT US.
Point is, we’ll win in the courst much sooner than in the court of public opinion.
And who cares…these people have such poor taste, why do we need their affirmation?..I mean, come on, look at all the vinyl siding out there!
What did you do to that clerk? Did you report it to the manager? Did you call the local paper and use his name?
Don’t stand for that!
For Frank and Charlie;
My family no longer makes purchases at this vitamin store and I did let this guy’s boss know why. As we shop in other stores in the same area it will be interesting to see if this clerk loses his position or not.
Charlie – I’m afraid I wasn’t very eloquent in my return when being called the abomination. In fact I stood there in an almost out of body fashion as this guy just lost it. I will add that up to this incident, this clerk and I were on friendly terms as I had no idea of his prejudices and he had no idea I was a lesbian – a married one at that. (my wife and I are one of the 18,000) But, believe me, Charlie, I felt what you’ve said here in my gut even if I couldn’t get anything out.
As to my own spiritual practices – no offense and no worries, Frank. I appreciate that you read my comments and took some of your time to add your own.
Dave – sorry to have missed your comment.
I did report this clerk’s behavior to his boss – and am no longer shopping at this store. I’m waiting to see what the owner does as I know I’ll be seeing him on future occasions. Thank you for taking the time to leave your comment and concern. It’s appreciated.
I’ll give you my opinion – the real battle is for acceptance as decent ordinary and even extraordinary people. The things that will drive this is being ‘out’, so people discover that they know gay people that they already work with etc, and respect.
Furthermore, by being out, you will embarass some of the more minor league homophobes, and force them to re-evaluate that position.
And, if I may speak, for the $30k I put into the campaign to kill prop 8, I’ve met a number of catholics, from conservative to relatively liberal, age 20 to 75. And a common thread is that they do support gays being treated equally, regardless of the church. The issue is that they feel in their guts that marriage is primarily a religious thing. Their bottom line is best described as “give them everything they want, except please don’t call it marriage.”
So real civil unions would get you that extra 5% that is needed. And if the law specifies that all legal, contractual, etc rights given to married couples are to be accorded to gay couples, then it’s only failing would be in the area of ‘pride-the use of tthe word.
And the good religious people would get comfortable with their gay friends, etc being treated equally under the law. That is what counts.
Oh I should have said that these polls show exactly what is known anyway. Ignorant people fall for the religious crap, cuz they are ignorant in the first place, and don’t understand that their built in ignorance is cuz they are.
Ossified brain old people just aren’t going to change till the maggots get their due in the end.
And the other thing that is so important is furthering an agenda of acceptance that is very widespread among the young. With PCs, cell phones, you tube, etc, their circle of friends is much wider. They have other race friends and gay friends and think nothing of it. Encouraging it through GSAs, etc will do so much as these people turn 18 to change the balance of power. And you can bet that they will largely ignore religion – the opiate of the masses -, because they will understand that one of it’s pillars almost always, especially in the conservative branches, is having a group to hate – blacks, Jews, Muslims, or gays, to further their cause. Nice people, huh. Didn’t hitler teach the world a lesson?