Nov 07, 2003  |  By: BRYAN ANDERTON  | COMMENTS     

A majority of teenagers — often considered more progressive and gay-friendly than older generations — do not approve of legalizing marriage between gay couples, a Gallup poll released last week suggests.

In a poll released by the Gallup Organization Oct. 28, when asked whether they approved or disapproved of “marriages between homosexuals,” 55 percent of teens said they disapproved, while 42 percent said they approved.

But the poll also revealed a sharp divide on the issue along gender lines, with nearly twice as many girls than boys expressing approval for same-sex marriages.

Evan Wolfson, executive director of the same-sex marriage advocacy group Freedom to Marry, said the poll results contradicted results from other recent polls.

“This poll is a little bit at odds with every other poll we’ve seen, … in which, overwhelmingly, young people strongly support ending discrimination in marriage,” Wolfson said.

The poll was conducted among 517 respondents aged 13 to 17. It had a 5 percent margin of error.

According to the poll, 45 percent of teens aged 13 to 15 approved of same-sex marriages, compared to only 38 percent of teens aged 16 and 17.

Perhaps more noteworthy is the sharp contrast in responses given by boys and girls. Fifty-six percent of the girls surveyed said they approved of same-sex marriages, as opposed to only 30 percent of the boys.

“It’s only boys by a large number who, by the poll and by the way it was worded, gave a negative answer,” Wolfson said. “I would bet you any poll they asked teenage boys using the word ‘homosexual’ would invite a negative response. And of course, that’s a sad statement of how vulnerable these boys are, and the importance of combating a negative message with an affirmative message about gay people and marriage.”

Wolfson said the results could have been skewed because of the question’s wording. He ventured that more of the teens, including the boys, would have expressed approval for same-sex marriage if the poll had asked whether they approved of discriminating against gays by denying same-sex partners the same rights afforded to opposite-sex couples in marriage.

Numerous calls to critics of gay marriage, including the Concerned Women for America and Peter LaBarbera, the former senior policy analyst for the Culture & Family Institute, seeking comment about the poll were not returned by press time.

Mass., Ariz. polls show support
Polls in two states where the marriage battle has been hotly debated recently show broad support for legal recognition of same-sex unions.

A strong majority of Massachusetts residents support civil marriages for gay couples, and nearly four-fifths are opposed to attempts to amend the state’s Constitution to explicitly deny gay couples the same rights as married heterosexuals, according to a poll released Oct. 30 by the national polling group Decision Research.

Since July, the Massachusetts Supreme Court has withheld a decision that many gay activists hope will make the state the first in the country to legalize same-sex marriages. A ruling is expected at any time.

In the Massachusetts poll, 59 percent of the 600 people interviewed said they support extending civil marriages to gay couples, compared to 35 percent who said they did not. Support was highest among women, Democrats, non-married people and people with college degrees, and was virtually equally distributed throughout the state’s various regions.

But Massachusetts residents were even more sharply opposed to the prospect of the state passing a constitutional amendment prohibiting civil marriage for gay couples; by a margin of 79 percent to 20 percent, respondents said the government had more important priorities than passing such a ban.

At the same time, a survey by Northern Arizona University showed that more Arizona residents oppose than support legal marriages for gay couples, but a majority do support allowing gays to enter into civil unions that would give them many of the same rights as married couples.

The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled last month that same-sex couples do not have the fundamental right to marry after a gay couple sued the state for marriage rights.

In the Arizona poll, 54 percent of the 610 residents surveyed said they opposed allowing gays to legally marry, compared to 42 percent who were in favor. But those numbers nearly flip-flopped when the same was asked about the prospect of gays entering into marriage-like civil unions: 53 percent supported that idea, while 43 percent were opposed.

Wolfson said those numbers are “very encouraging.”

“Just a few points’ shift would put us in the majority, ...