The most recent survey of voters in Massachusetts suggests that voters remained split on SSM, five years after it was imposed in that state, and that a significant share of SSM supporters believed that dissenters should feel intimidated.
Before I get to the survey results, let's take a look at a common theme of SSMers across the country.
This past weekend, the Democratic Party's candidate for the US Senate in Massachusetts, Martha Coakley, issued a campaign statement that touched on the SSM issue. It included these key assertions:
"Marriage equality has been the law of the land in Massachusetts for nearly six years, and it’s supported by a majority of voters who know first-hand that the sky hasn’t fallen just because we have marriage equality."
Here she has invested in the potentially persuasive force of majority opinion, but, as a dedicated leader for SSM in Massachusetts, Coakley has disparaged the very idea of holding a vote to directly measure the electorate's support for the SSM idea. So it is odd that she'd favorably use "majority" and "voters" in the same phrase.
Putting aside this apparent hypocrisy, what do we know about public opinion on SSM and does it backup Coakley's assertions?
[Click here to read the full blogpost.]
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A. Is SSM supported by a majority of voters?
There can be no decisive answer today since the merger has not been voted on directly by the voters of Massachusetts. The SSM campaign made sure of that. However, a survey of a representative sample of registered voters can give some measure of public opinion. Such surveys have underestimated (by as much as 10%) the support for marriage that would be counted in actual votes on marriage measures in other states. That's been acknowledged by SSM leaders as well as marriage defenders and others.
B. Is it a certainty that most voters "know first-hand that the sky hasn't fallen just because" SSM was merged with marriage in Massachusetts?
Of course, the sky still hangs overhead throughout the country (and beyond) so it has not fallen anyplace at all -- not even where "a majority of voters" actually had the opportunity to decide to reject or to affirm that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. But if Coakley meant to imply that the polity within Massachusetts has united around a new social consensus, then, a survey might give some hint of increased social cohesion rather than the opposite. It might also take the temperature of "first-hand" experience with the imposition of SSM in Massachusetts.
The Survey Says.
Well, in March 2009 a statewide, randomized, representative sampling of registered voters was surveyed on the issue of SSM. This is the most recent survey of registered voters in Massachusetts. It provides some background for consideration of these questions that arise from Coakley's pro-SSM assertions on the cusp of the special election for her state's next US Senator.
Here are a few of the survey results.
1. Party affiliation.
55% Independent
30% Democrat (4% weak, 26% strong)
13% Republican (4% weak, 9% strong)
3% Other (1% none/other, 2% don't know/no response)
2. Marriage and SSM.
Personally favor or oppose SSM generally.
44% Oppose
43% Favor
14% Don't know/No response
Of those decided:
50.6% Oppose
49.4% Favor
3. Those opposed "should feel intimidated".
People who think marriage is only between a man and a woman should feel intimidated, because they are engaging in discrimination, and no one should feel free to be for discrimination. Do you agree or disagree with that statement? Do you feel that way strongly or not strongly?
27% Agree (19% strong, 8% not strongly)
58% Disagree (41% strongly, 17% not strongly)
14% Don't know
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There's more to see in the survey [PDF] regarding parenting, schools, and intimidation of dissenters. You can also read a couple of summaries by the survey sponsors:
Massachusetts Family Institute: Same-Sex "Marriage" Divides MA.
National Institute of Marriage: Massachusetts Gay Marriage.
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These are the results of a telephone survey of registered voters in Massachusetts, commissioned by the National Organization for Marriage, Massachusetts Family Institute, and Coalition for Marriage and conducted by QEV Analytics (www.QEV.com). The obtained sample is representative of this population. A pool of individual registrants was randomly selected from among all registered voters in the Commonwealth. Interviewing was conducted during the period March 30-31, 2009. The obtained sample was weighted by race to match the known characteristics of the surveyed population. In total, 306 respondents participated in the survey, resulting in a theoretical margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.7 percent at the 95 percent confidence level.
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Return to "Race for MA Senate Seat: Conflict Over Marriage Issue."
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