According to AP writer Lisa Leff, a new poll shows 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.
According to results released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California, the ban drew its strongest support from both evangelical Christians and voters who didn’t attend college. Meanwhile, age and race were not as strong factors as assumed. 56 percent of voters over age 55 and 57 percent of nonwhite voters cast a yes ballot for the gay marriage ban, according to the numbers from the poll.
With 85 percent of evangelical Christians, 66 percent of Protestants and 60 percent of Roman Catholics favoring the amendment, people who identified themselves as practicing Christians were highly likely to give it their support.
The poll also showed that the measure got strong backing from voters who earned less than $40,000 a year (63 percent), voters who did not attend college (69 percent) and Latinos (61 percent).
The proposition which overturned the state Supreme Court’s May decision legalizing gay marriage in California, passed with 52 percent of the vote. Language limiting marriage to one man and one woman is inserted into the constitution by the measure.
Forty-eight percent of the voters opposed the idea of making gay marriage legal, forty-seven percent supported it and 5 percent were undecided.
Survey director Mark Baldassare said that 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.
Baldassare said, “At no point in time, before or after the election, did we have a majority of Californians saying they supported gay marriage. My take-away 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.”
Executive director of the gay rights group Equality California, Geoffrey Kors, said that 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.”
California voters in the Nov. 4 election were interviewed from Nov. 5-6. The poll was based on a phone survey of said voters and the sampling error was plus or minus 2 percentage points.
We have written previously in the TicosLand.com blog that Costa Ricans are also deeply divided over this issue. There has been a call for a referendum, but gay, lesbian and “transgender” groups are opposed to the referendum because they don’t want to put the rights of the minority in the hands of the majority.
Tags: california, california gay marriage ban, Costa Rica, gay, gay marriage, gay marriage ban, lesbian, same sex, same sex marriage, transgender
