Nov 03, 2006  |  By: ELIZABETH A. PERRY  | COMMENTS     

the Marshall-Newman amendment. Webb has said the amendment is too broadly worded and would have negative consequences for unmarried straight couples.

Warner was the guest of a Commonwealth Coalition fundraiser Thursday at the home of Mark Lowham and Joseph Ruzzo.

Amendment reveals
a divided state

The Daily Press reported support for the proposed state amendment to ban same-sex marriage has declined due to concentrated opposition in Northern Virginia.

The latest Mason-Dixon poll showed 52 percent of the 625 registered voters surveyed from Oct. 17-19 supported the ban, 42 percent opposed it and 6 percent were undecided. The poll also broke the results down along party lines, showing Democrats opposed the ban by 64 to 28 percent. Republicans supported the ban by 76 to 20 percent.

Brad Coker, managing director for Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, told The Daily Press the results showed “the clear cultural divide between Northern Virginia and the rest of the state,” and that if opponents of the ban want to sink the amendment, they will have to show greater numbers in areas outside of Northern Virginia. “Growing opposition in Northern Virginia alone is probably not enough to change the outcome.”

A previous Mason-Dixon poll, released Sept. 12, showed support declined slightly from 56 percent in July to 54 percent. Opposition to the amendment increased from 38 percent in July to 40 percent in September, with the number of undecideds unchanged from 6 percent in both polls.

The Washington Post released the results of its poll on the Marshall-Newman Amendment Oct. 17 and reported that most of the state is likely to vote in favor of the amendment, but amendment opponents said the poll reveals little change in previously reported numbers. The Post poll was conducted Oct. 10-12 among a random telephone sample of 1,004 likely voters.

According to the poll, 53 percent of likely voters said they would vote for the amendment and 43 percent said they would vote against it, with 4 percent undecided. Northern Virginia voters were most likely to vote against the amendment, with 55 percent opposed and 42 percent in favor and 3 percent undecided. Results in the rest of Virginia indicated that 58 percent of voters said they would support the amendment and 38 percent would oppose it, with 5 percent undecided.

Deeds withdraws
amendment support

In other amendment developments, conservative Republican State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds of Bath County renounced his support for the amendment in a statement to the media. He said he still opposes gay marriage but said the language of the amendment “goes far beyond existing law and threatens real harm to many Virginians and their families, among them the unmarried victims of domestic violence.”

Elsewhere, Lara Ballard, co-chair of the Military Equality Alliance Board, wrote letters to the Judge Advocate Generals of the four branches of the U.S. Armed Forces to review what she called the “likely effects” of the Marshall-Newman amendment on militar