60% of Americans Approve of Gay Unions
A new poll sheds insight into the national opinion of gay unions and how there is a rising trend in support over the past two years.
Most adults in the United States believe same-sex partnerships should be legally acknowledged, according to a poll by Opinion Dynamics released by Fox News. 30 per cent of respondents think gays and lesbians should be allowed to legally marry, while 30 per cent support a similar legal partnership that should not be called marriage.
Conversely, 32 per cent of respondents believe there should be no legal recognition to gay and lesbian relationships.
In 2004, marriage certificates were issued to same-sex couples by local governments in the states of California, Oregon, New Mexico and New York. In May 2004, the state of Massachusetts allowed gay and lesbian partners to apply for marriage licenses, the first state-sanctioned homosexual weddings in the U.S.
Civil union and domestic partnership laws in Vermont, Connecticut and California grant same-sex couples all state-level rights and obligations of marriage—in areas such as inheritance, income tax, insurance and hospital visitation. There are more than 1,000 federal-level rights of marriage that cannot be granted by states.
On Jun. 7, a proposal to enact a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage failed in the Senate after a 49-48 vote. On Jul. 18, a House of Representatives effort to constitutionally prohibit any form of marriage other than one "between a man and a woman" fell 46 votes short of the 289 required to pass.
Over the past two years, 19 American states have enacted amendments to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman. Seven more approved similar measures after statewide ballots on Nov. 7.
On Nov. 8, Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, expressed satisfaction with the victories of Deval Patrick and Eliot Spitzer, saying, "Massachusetts and New York voters have elected in overwhelming landslides the first two governors ever who support marriage equality for same-sex couples. These historic victories show that support for full equality for our families is not a negative but something voters are willing to embrace enthusiastically."
via Angus-Reid
Labels: civil union, marriage, poll
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on Friday, November 17, 2006 at 11:31 AM.
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Byin fact there's many college students that agree with the fact of gay or lesbian marriage. There's something that we should do. like offer a program in some colleges that talks about homosexuality and how people feel about that.
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Although it may seem to many as though gay marriage made its debut on the public stage during this Presidential campaign, it has been a public issue for at least a decade.
In 1996, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). It prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriages and also allows a state to ignore gay marriages performed outside its borders.
Four states (Maryland, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Wyoming) have laws or court rulings from before 1996 that prohibit same-sex marriage.
The big news on 2 November was the number of state constitutional amendments that passed, as well as President Bush's change of heart. In 2000, he characterized this as a state's rights issue; today he supports a federal constitutional amendment that will define marriage as occurring between a man and a woman.
Gay unions may, like other civil rights battles, labor in the spotlight for a generation or more before change occurs. And the Economist reported in February that this is a generational issue: 55% of those aged 18-29 support same-sex marriage, but only 21% of those over 65 do.
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