Poll Dancing Again in California

A Public Policy Institute of California poll is all over the news, such as in this LATimes.com blog entry by Shelby Grad, because of a claim that it shows 50% of Californians supporting "gay marriage".

In the blog entry, they continue to use the phrasing that we imposed a "ban on gay marriage", which as I've noted many times before, is a sloppy description.

According to the Public Policy Institute of California poll, 50% of respondents support gay marriage and 45% oppose it.

This is unclear. For example, someone can be supportive of their homosexual friend committing to a same-sex partner and getting a state domestic partnership, but not be in favor of repealing the California Marriage Amendment. Such a person can claim to support "gay marriage". I'd like to see what the results would be if the question was phrased as, "Do you want to repeal an amendment to the state constitution so as to make it the official policy of the state, which includes public schools, that there is no difference between a man and a woman getting a married and two men or two women getting married?"

The PPIC said it marks the highest level of support for gay marriage their polls have recorded in California.

I remember when the polls showed more "no" votes than "yes" votes for Proposition 8.

You can read previous blog entries relevant to this topic here, here, here, and here.