Voters divided on gay
marriage
By GEOFF MULVIHILL,
AP from thnt Online November 1, 2007
MOUNT LAUREL — New Jersey
voters remain evenly divided over whether gay couples should be given the right
to marry in the state, according to a poll released Wednesday.
Voters are clearly comfortable, however, with something the state already does:
allow gay couples to join in civil unions, which offer the legal benefits of
marriage, but not the title. According to the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll,
two-thirds of poll respondents said they favor civil unions.
The results are similar to those of an Eagleton poll conducted in June 2006.
"Usually change is news. But in this case, no change in public opinion is
the real news, given all that has happened in the past year," said Tim
Vercellotti, the polling director at the Eagleton Institute of Politics.
"The consistency of public opinion on these issues suggests these are deeply
held beliefs that do not shift easily."
The poll was conducted about one year after the state Supreme Court ruled that
gay couples had to be given the legal rights of marriage. Late last year,
the state Legislature responded by adopting the nation's third civil unions law.
It gives couples benefits in many areas, including inheritance and adoption
rights and the right to health insurance for partners, just like married people
can get.
But gay rights advocates have been pressing for full marriage rights, arguing
that civil unions are not easily understood and that too many companies do not
recognize them. They have promised a major push for full marriage in the
Legislature, likely sometime next year.
A handful of states offer civil unions, but only Massachusetts allows gay
couples to marry.
The advocates' message that civil unions aren't working might not be getting to
the public. More than two-thirds of the poll respondents said they did not
know whether the civil union law was working.
The poll found a trend that others have found: Younger people are more
open to gay marriage.
Overall, 48 percent of the adults who responded favored gay marriage, while 44
percent opposed it.
Nearly three in five people between 18 and 29 favor gay marriage, compared with
about half of voters between 30 and 64, and one-third of those over 65.
The poll also found that people personally close to gays and lesbians supported
gay marriage at a higher rate than those who don't have gay friends or
relatives.
The telephone poll of 1,002 New Jersey adults, including 856 registered voters,
was conducted from Oct. 18-23.
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