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A Majority In Connecticut Poll Backs Gay Marriage Ruling (Hartford Courant)
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
By: Christopher Keating
Fifty-three percent of Connecticut residents support Friday's historic ruling by the state Supreme Court that legalizes gay marriage, while 42 percent of residents polled said they do not.
The weekend poll, taken for The Courant by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at the University of Connecticut, showed a wide difference of opinion among Democrats and Republicans over an emotional social issue.
Democrats said they support the court's ruling by 72 percent to 24 percent, while Republicans have nearly the opposite view: 29 percent favor the ruling and 69 percent are against.
"This is still a highly contentious issue within the state of Connecticut," said Samuel Best, the center's director. "The overwhelming majority of folks feel very strongly on this."
Among independent voters, the total was almost the same as the overall result: 52 percent support the decision and 44 percent oppose it. The poll of 502 adults has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
Some analysts have said that weekend polling can generate a skewed result because it is more difficult to reach a representative sample of residents who are home on a busy weekend. But Best said the polling center used both listed and unlisted telephone numbers in a random-digit dialing technique that made him confident of the poll results.
"We went to great lengths to make sure we got folks from all parts of the state and political backgrounds," Best said.
Best cautioned that the poll did not ask anything about a question on the state ballot on Election Day about whether the state should hold a constitutional convention. That question appears on the ballot every 20 years. But it is particularly timely this year because opponents of gay marriage are urging a "yes" vote in the hope that the convention would allow for direct initiative. Under that scenario, all voters could cast ballots in a statewide referendum on whether Connecticut should allow gay marriage.
But both proponents and opponents said the Nov. 4 question is only the first step in a multipronged process that might never lead to a statewide vote on gay marriage. Delegates would need a two-thirds vote from the Democrat-controlled legislature to gain a seat at the convention, and then those delegates would decide which issues would be addressed. They could decide, for example, to avoid talking about gay marriage at all.
Among those polled by the center, 73 percent said that gay and lesbian couples should have the right to adopt children, while 19 percent said they should not. In addition, 87 percent said that people who are openly gay should be allowed to serve in the U.S. military, while 8 percent said they should not.
Overall, 53 percent said that same-sex marriage would be "no factor at all" in their decisions on Election Day, while 35 percent said it would be a minor factor and 11 percent said it would be a major factor.
Gay marriage and civil unions have been highly emotional issues in the general public and at the state Capitol — prompting rallies by those on both sides of the issue. The legislature passed a civil union bill in 2005 that was signed into law by Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell, and it was specifically written into the bill that marriage is between a man and a woman. But the state Supreme Court went further on Friday by ruling 4-3 that gay marriage will be legal.
Three of the four justices in the majority, including the main author, Justice Richard Palmer, were appointed to the court in the early 1990s by Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. The fourth member of the majority, Lubbie Harper, sits on the Appellate Court but was appointed to sit as the seventh member of the panel for the gay marriage case after two justices recused themselves from the case.
Two of the dissenters, Peter Zarella and Christine S. Vertefeuille, were appointed by Gov. John G. Rowland. The third dissenter, Justice David M. Borden, is the court's senior member who was appointed by Gov. William A. O'Neill, a conservative Democrat. Some observers believe that former chief justice William "Tocco" Sullivan would have been a guaranteed vote against same-sex marriage, but he recused himself from the case before oral arguments.
Unlike some other issues that have remained somewhat steady through the years, the polling on gay marriage and civil unions has shifted over time.
In April 2005, a poll by Quinnipiac University showed that the public opposed gay marriage by 53 percent to 42 percent. The Family Institute released a poll in 2005 that said that 78 percent agreed that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.
In February 2007, a Quinnipiac poll showed that 39 percent supported gay marriage and 33 percent supported civil unions but not marriage. In addition, 22 percent said there should be no recognition of same-sex unions at all. That poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
A poll taken for The Courant by the center at UConn in April 2007 showed 49 percent in favor of gay marriage and 46 percent opposed, with a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.
Christopher Keating is the Courant's Capitol bureau chief.
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