Gay Marriage Reaches Majority Support In California

A majority of Californian voters support gay marriage, a new poll found.

The survey released last week by Public Policy Polling found 51 percent of voters in the Golden State believe gay marriage should be legal, while 40 percent believe it should be illegal. That's an increase of 5 percentage points since September's results.

The largest increase in support came from Republicans and independents. Republican voters increased from 15 percent in support to 29, nearly doubling in 4 months. Sixty-six percent of self-identified Democrats say gay marriage should be legal.

In 2008, voters approved the state's gay marriage ban, Proposition 8. The constitutional amendment was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court last year. A decision on an appeal to the case is expected within the next few months.

“The tide is turning toward equality in one of the bluest states in the country as the courts head toward a possible overturning of Prop 8,” Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling, said in a statement.

The poll surveyed 892 California voters from January 28th to 30th. The survey's margin of error is +/- 3.3%.

source

Poll: LGBT Community Kept Faith in Obama

By Advocate.com Editors

A poll shows that President Barack Obama held a higher job approval rating among the LGBT people than the public at large last fall even before “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal was passed and signed into law.

The Huffington Post reports that it obtained the Democratic poll, which had not been previously published, from a “high-ranking LGBT operative” interested in showing that LGBT Americans would no lose patience with President Obama in the years ahead, when the Republican-controlled House is likely to stall progress on major legislative items.

“In an October survey conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, 64 percent of self-described LGBT community members said they approved or strongly approved of the way Obama was handling his job,” reports HuffPo. “While only 30 percent of all likely voters said the country was headed in the right direction (62 percent said the opposite), 46 percent of LGBT respondents answered ‘right direction’ (49 percent said ‘wrong direction’).”

The survey polled 1,077 self-identified LGBT people, half by phone and half online. However, only 5% of respondents described their issues as the most important facing the country. Some 58% cited the economy as their priority.

source