Californians Lean Toward Supporting Gay Marriage, Poll Finds

By Anastacia Mott Austin

Historically, voters have been loathe to take away individual rights once they have been granted.

This would seem to hold true if a recent Field poll saying Californians would vote against a ban on gay marriage is accurate.

The poll stated that 51% of likely voters would vote "no" on Proposition 8, which aims to create a constitutional ban on gay marriage, and 42% would vote yes.

The percentages fell along predictably partisan and geographical lines. Most Democrats in the survey, 63%, would vote "no" on Proposition 8, while 68% of Republicans would vote for it. Those with no party affiliation are overwhelming prepared to vote no, 66% to 27%.

The more politically liberal areas of California, most notably the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area, are against the measure 67% to 26%, and Los Angeles and surrounding areas are voting no by 51% to 41%.

Central Valley voters are saying yes to Proposition 8 50% to 40%.

Women are against the measure more strongly than men, and voters younger than 30 as well as "baby boomers" aged 50-64 are also planning to vote no. Voters whose ages are between 31-49 are more evenly divided, and older votes are leaning toward supporting it.

Evangelical Christians, perhaps not surprisingly, are strongly in favor of the measure, 66% to 31%, while non-evangelical Christians are opposed, with other religious affiliations falling somewhere in between.

Those surveyed who have family members, neighbors, or co-workers who are gay were more opposed (54% to 40%) than those who thought they knew no gay people, who are evenly divided on the measure.

Survey participants were asked if they were aware of Proposition 8 and what it meant, and whether they would vote yes or no on it were they to vote today.

Supporters of the measure say the numbers are not accurate and that Proposition 8 has slowly been gaining support. Frank Schubert, campaign manager for the proposition, says that the Field poll is flawed. "The Field Poll has consistently understated the support of Californians who believe the definition of marriage should be upheld," said Schubert to reporters. "In May when Field was reporting that support for the initiative was at 40%, the Los Angeles Times survey found support at 54%. Over the years Field has consistently understated support for the initiative by a minimum of 10 percent. The current findings continue to substantially understate the true support for the initiative."

Granted, the subject pool was very small, with only 672 participants, but several sources cite the Field poll as a fairly reliable measure of voter tendencies.

Opponents of the measure attempted to stop the initiative from going forward, saying that it would be more than an amendment to the state’s constitution, it would be a revision, which needs to be approved by a two-thirds majority vote of the legislature.

They were turned down this week by the State Supreme Court, which is allowing the measure to go forward. This decision, say experts, mean that the battle to ban same-sex marriage in California could go on for a long time, meaning that if Proposition 8 fails this time, then a similar amendment will simply reappear at the next election, and so on.