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New Yorkers Divided On Marriage
Religious, Blacks Favor Tradition
By Bradley Vasoli, The Bulletin
As the New York state legislature considers altering the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples, a Quinnipiac University poll released yesterday shows Empire State voters split on the issue.
A closer look at Quinnipiac’s data shows some fairly pronounced cultural divisions. While 46 percent of New York registered voters surveyed say they favor gay marriage and the same percentage say they oppose it, black voters oppose it 57 percent to 35 percent. White New York voters support it 47 percent to 45 percent.
“It’s not surprising to me that the black community in the aggregate is opposed,” Quinnipiac University Polling Institute Director Maurice Carroll said. “They tend to be church-oriented.”
Voters also tend to differ on the marriage issue according to religion. Fifty-three percent of New York’s Catholics are against it while 39 percent want to enact it and the state’s Protestants disfavor it 55 to 38 percent. Sixty-one percent of Jews support same-sex marriage while 34 percent oppose it.
It’s uncertain whether New York’s lawmakers will ultimately discard the traditional definition of marriage. The State Assembly passed a homosexual-marriage statute earlier this week by a comfortable margin, but the state Senate looks unlikely to do the same. Gov. David Paterson, D, strongly supports the measure.
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont and Iowa have all legalized gay marriage, even though the idea seemed to face long odds when Vermont enacted a kind of marriage-lite compromise in the form of civil unions in 2000. In states like New York that still define marriage traditionally, liberalization of the institution may not happen overnight, but Mr. Carroll pointed to one trend that bodes ill for traditional marriage.
Younger voters, he said, overwhelmingly want gay marriages legally recognized and even voters aged 35 to 54 lean slightly toward favoring it. Those over 55 continue to resist the idea.
“What that says to me is, ‘Hey gay activists, be patient; you’re going to win this thing,’” Mr. Carroll said. “Let’s face it, young people are going to be around a lot longer.”
Some opponents of gay marriage, however, doubt a near-nationwide policy is as inevitable as supporters often suggest, even if the idea captures strong support in the northeast and among the young. Of the 45 states that recognize marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman, 29 have adopted constitutional amendments to preserve that definition.
And while younger voters tend to support gay marriage, according to Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., they tend to adopt more conservative cultural views once they get married and have children.
“There is a slow trend towards greater support for same-sex marriage, but I don’t think it suggests that we’re going to see same-sex marriage nationwide anytime soon,” Mr. Sprigg said.
Economist Jennifer Roback Morse, founder and president of the pro-family nonprofit Ruth Institute, described “a concerted effort on the part of the gay lobby” to portray the redefinition of marriage as predestined. But she noted that a grassroots movement to preserve longstanding family policy has kept pressure on Gov. John Lynch, D-N.H., to veto pending gay-marriage legislation. And she said similar sentiment could end gay marriage in Maine via referendum.
Much of the opposition to same-sex marriage owes to resistance to changes that commercial, nonprofit and governmental institutions will have to make to accommodate homosexual couples should those couples’ relationships become enshrined in law.
“Private businesses will have no choice but to treat those marriages the same as other marriages,” Mr. Sprigg said.
Dr. Morse also expressed concerns along those lines.
“The marriage statutes work hand-in-hand with the anti-discrimination statutes,” she said.
Generally a champion of small government, Dr. Morse said supporters of gay marriage should not labor under the assumption that their efforts would diminish the role of the state. On the contrary, she said, they will increase it by demanding conformity on the part of those who back traditional marriage.
“Gay marriage,” she said, “is a creation of the state.”
Bradley Vasoli can be reached at bvasoli@thebulletin.us
A closer look at Quinnipiac’s data shows some fairly pronounced cultural divisions. While 46 percent of New York registered voters surveyed say they favor gay marriage and the same percentage say they oppose it, black voters oppose it 57 percent to 35 percent. White New York voters support it 47 percent to 45 percent.
“It’s not surprising to me that the black community in the aggregate is opposed,” Quinnipiac University Polling Institute Director Maurice Carroll said. “They tend to be church-oriented.”
Voters also tend to differ on the marriage issue according to religion. Fifty-three percent of New York’s Catholics are against it while 39 percent want to enact it and the state’s Protestants disfavor it 55 to 38 percent. Sixty-one percent of Jews support same-sex marriage while 34 percent oppose it.
It’s uncertain whether New York’s lawmakers will ultimately discard the traditional definition of marriage. The State Assembly passed a homosexual-marriage statute earlier this week by a comfortable margin, but the state Senate looks unlikely to do the same. Gov. David Paterson, D, strongly supports the measure.
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont and Iowa have all legalized gay marriage, even though the idea seemed to face long odds when Vermont enacted a kind of marriage-lite compromise in the form of civil unions in 2000. In states like New York that still define marriage traditionally, liberalization of the institution may not happen overnight, but Mr. Carroll pointed to one trend that bodes ill for traditional marriage.
Younger voters, he said, overwhelmingly want gay marriages legally recognized and even voters aged 35 to 54 lean slightly toward favoring it. Those over 55 continue to resist the idea.
“What that says to me is, ‘Hey gay activists, be patient; you’re going to win this thing,’” Mr. Carroll said. “Let’s face it, young people are going to be around a lot longer.”
Some opponents of gay marriage, however, doubt a near-nationwide policy is as inevitable as supporters often suggest, even if the idea captures strong support in the northeast and among the young. Of the 45 states that recognize marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman, 29 have adopted constitutional amendments to preserve that definition.
And while younger voters tend to support gay marriage, according to Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., they tend to adopt more conservative cultural views once they get married and have children.
“There is a slow trend towards greater support for same-sex marriage, but I don’t think it suggests that we’re going to see same-sex marriage nationwide anytime soon,” Mr. Sprigg said.
Economist Jennifer Roback Morse, founder and president of the pro-family nonprofit Ruth Institute, described “a concerted effort on the part of the gay lobby” to portray the redefinition of marriage as predestined. But she noted that a grassroots movement to preserve longstanding family policy has kept pressure on Gov. John Lynch, D-N.H., to veto pending gay-marriage legislation. And she said similar sentiment could end gay marriage in Maine via referendum.
Much of the opposition to same-sex marriage owes to resistance to changes that commercial, nonprofit and governmental institutions will have to make to accommodate homosexual couples should those couples’ relationships become enshrined in law.
“Private businesses will have no choice but to treat those marriages the same as other marriages,” Mr. Sprigg said.
Dr. Morse also expressed concerns along those lines.
“The marriage statutes work hand-in-hand with the anti-discrimination statutes,” she said.
Generally a champion of small government, Dr. Morse said supporters of gay marriage should not labor under the assumption that their efforts would diminish the role of the state. On the contrary, she said, they will increase it by demanding conformity on the part of those who back traditional marriage.
“Gay marriage,” she said, “is a creation of the state.”
Bradley Vasoli can be reached at bvasoli@thebulletin.us
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