WASHINGTON — Gay
marriage is not a decisive issue for American voters in the 2004
presidential election, despite national debate over gay rights,
according to recent polls.
A CBS News poll found that more than half (52 percent) of all
voters would support a candidate who doesn’t share their
views on gay marriage. Only 4 percent of voters said gay marriage
is the main issue they want to hear about in the election.
Neither Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, nor Sen. John Edwards, D-NC,
supports legalization of gay marriage, but both leading candidates
oppose the constitutional amendment proposed by President Bush
banning gay marriage completely.
Voters in a poll sponsored by the Alliance to End Hunger said
candidates’ positions on issues such as poverty and hunger
are more important than positions on gay marriage. In the survey,
a majority of voters — 78 percent — said a candidate’s
plan for fighting poverty would affect their voting decision,
while only 15 percent said a candidate’s position on gay
marriage would matter.
“In a campaign year increasingly dominated by talk of
moral values, it is very significant to find that a large majority
of voters believes a candidate’s position on fighting poverty
is more important than their position on gay marriage,”
Jim Wallis of Call to Renewal, a faith-based anti-poverty group,
said in a statement.
A Pew Research Center study found that a national ban on gay
marriage, despite recent debate, is not an issue of importance
for voters. Gay marriage did, however, rank as a more important
issue than abortion or gun control.
The Pew poll, which surveyed 1,500 U.S. adults, found that American
voters oppose gay marriage by more than two-to-one. Gay marriage
remains a “make-or-break” voting issue for two-thirds
of gay marriage opponents but only 6 percent of gay marriage supporters.
Some voters are more strongly opposed than others, according
to the Pew report.
“Even among gay marriage opponents, the issue has a disproportionate
impact on some groups — notably conservative Republicans,
evangelical Christians and voters age 65 and older,” the
report said.
Six in ten Republican voters strongly oppose gay marriage, as
do two-thirds of evangelical Protestant voters. Of voters 65 and
older, 60 percent oppose gay marriage. Catholics and mainline
Protestants are less likely to count gay marriage as an important
factor in their voting decision.
According to CBS, opposition to gay marriage is growing. Nearly
60 percent of Americans said they favor an amendment limiting
marriage to a man and a woman, up from 55 percent last December.
The number of voters who favored allowing homosexual couples
to legally marry in a July CBS poll was 40 percent; it has dropped
steadily since then to a current low of 30 percent. |
