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In 2005, 76% of Texas voters amended their state constitution to define marriage as a special right for heterosexuals, and to make the creation or recognition of any parallel relationship recognition system (and perhaps even heterosexual marriage) unconstitutional:
Art. 1 Sec. 32. MARRIAGE. (a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.(b) This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.
Yet this week, a mere 5 years later, a new UT-Austin/Texas Tribune Poll shows that 63% of Texas voters support marriage equality or civil unions for gay and lesbian couples.
Q41. What is you opinion on gay marriage or civil unions?
28% Gays and lesbians should have the right to marry. 35% Gays and lesbians should have the right to civil unions but not to marry. 30% Gays and lesbians should not have the right to civil unions or marriage. 7% Don’t know.
The Dallas Voice reports that Texans polled almost identically on the same question last year (emphasis mine):
Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at UT, which conducted the poll, said he was surprised last year when a previous TPP poll and a Texas Lyceum poll showed that 61 percent and 57 percent of Texans, respectively, support relationship recognition for same-sex couples.“I’ve kind of stopped being surprised,” Henson said this week. “These are remarkably stable numbers.”
Henson noted that results from the three polls are essentially within one another’s margin of error.
“The more you get that result, the more you have to say that my baseline assumption – that this is a complete non-starter in Texas – seems wrong,” Henson said, referring to relationship recognition. “This seems to be rapidly becoming not a question of what’s in public opinion. What’s in public opinion is becoming kind of a settled issue. Now the question is one of leadership and politics.”
Henson said the poll results suggest that a small minority of voters who are adamantly opposed to relationship recognition are dictating public policy on the issue.
So, has the voting population changed dramatically since the discriminatory amendment was passed in 2005, or is there some other explanation for the huge disparity between the 2005 vote result and the recent poll numbers? Chuck Smith, deputy director at Equality Texas, attributes it to both dismal voter turnout in 2005 and to changing attitudes:
But turnout in the election was just 17 percent, and Smith said he believes attitudes have changed in the last five years.“There’s history and evidence from other places that the sky doesn’t fall and there’s not a negative impact on anybody else’s relationship,” Smith said.
So it would seem that while marriage equality is still off the table in Texas, there is now perhaps room for compromise in the form of civil unions. It would take a two-thirds majority in the Texas legislature to put yet another constitutional amendment on the ballot that would effect a repeal part (b) of the 2005 amendment. That may seem like a tall order, but for legislators who understand the terrible injustice in denying relationship recognition to their gay and lesbian constituents, the consistency of the polls over the last two years should provide them ample cover as they work to right a terrible wrong.
“It’s positive steps toward letting elected officials know that they’re really not going out on such a long limb to support relationship recognition measures,” Smith said. “Over time, that is indeed going to give policymakers the cover, or the ability to believe that they’re not going to get thrown out of office if they do that.”[snip]
“What the poll is saying, it’s acknowledging the existence of relationships between gay and lesbian people,” Smith said. “The majority of people don’t believe in ignoring the existence of those.”
16 Comments
ProgressWhat is you opinion on gay marriage or civil unions?
28% All humans are equal
35% Some are less equal than others.
30% Some aren’t human.
7% Don’t know if bigotry is bad or good.
It’s progress, but it ain’t enough.
So?Does anyone seriously think that these numbers are going to translate into positive legislation in Texas any time soon? Or that, if somehow that does happen, that swarm of Republicans who occupy the Texas Supreme Court won’t erase it with the following two-sentence opinion?
I think it is important for Texansto know that what they may be told is popular opinion is not, in fact, popular opinion.
Part of what this showsIs just how many people don’t (or didn’t) understand that the laws and amendments banning marriage banned civil unions as well, even though the language was pretty darn clear.
It also shows the idiocy of the rulings that declare that states which have the “can’t vote on two separate issues in the same bill” law and still put marriage and civil unions in the same law or amendment measure were completely out of line.
The big problem is how frigging hard it is going to be to reverse these amendments, even with public opinion on our side.
Fickle, capricious mindsIt probably points more toward the 35% that support civil unions but not marriage were either too callous or too ignorant to care the original language of the ballot prevented civil unions as well. If you add the 35% with 30% completely opposed, given the differences in sampling populations, its sort of close to that 76%.
These are the sort of people who also feel they aren’t directly affected by such a vote, positively or negatively. So they are free to change their opinions on a whim. They might have felt especially sympathetic they day they took the opinion pole, compared what they might have felt with the deluge of gospel and misinformation on ballot day.
Remember it was 76% of those who voted.The election was held off cycle and with only a 12% turnout. Do the math: 9% of the people of Texas voted to deny relationship recognition to gay and lesbian residents of Texas. That was hardly democratic.
these poll numbers are meaninglessthe polls in Washington State also showed support for civil unions at 75%, yet only 53% voted to approve it at the ballot box last year… Go figure.
not meaningless at allyou just have to be mindful of the differences between what population you’re polling and what population is actually voting. registered voters and the subset of them that actually participate in a particular election are two different things.
first off, the % of registered voters supporting DPs and/or marriage was more like 66% in WA, not 75%.
second, like the 2005 amendment vote in Texas, our vote on R-71 took place in an off year when usually older, more conservative voters are the ones to participate at a greater rate. this explains the difference between the WA poll (66%) and vote result (53%). remember that just prior to the election WAFST conducted a poll of likely voters for that election that showed only 51% support for the DP law. ”likely voters” are a subset of “registered voters” and aren’t necessarily representative of the whole registered voter pool.
AgreedIt’s the same way in AR. No civil unions, do domestic partnerships…nothing “closely resembling” marriage or granting rights that come with marriage.
::sigh::
That makes mefeel better.
sorry, you’re right75% was the percentage in support of limited rights and benefits, and 66% supported full domestic partnerships, if I’m not mistaken.
I find this difficult to believeI’m curious where the pollsters called and canvassed. In Austin, Houston, El Paso and the DFW Metroplex? Sure, totally plausible and believable. Houston has a openly lesbian mayor, Dallas has at least one gay man on the city council, Austin has a thriving queer population and even Ft. Worth gets into the spirit now and again.
Or, did they poll the half of the population that live in cities of less than 50k? Doubtful because if they had, the numbers would be different.
I’ve lived in both a larger city (90k with an air force base and university) and a small town (fewer than 15k) and the attitudes are pretty much on the opposite ends of the spectrum.
I used to live in San Angelo and there was a quiet but thriving queer community, but when a some students at the local university in the city where I live now tried to start a GSA a couple years ago, you might have thought the world was coming to an end. Tarleton students can get away with a slap on the wrist after having a ‘come as your favorite black stereotype’ party and but queers can’t have a float in the parade.
I hope I’m wrong. Maybe I’m seeing everything through the lens of bitter experience but nothing I’ve seen supports those kind of numbers.
urban & rural if you look at the results, which start on page 171 of this BIG PDF, whether the respondent was from urban, suburban or rural didn’t seem to matter much. education level, political party and frequency of church attendance seem to be more meaningful correlates.
don’t forget that haters usually make a LOT more noise than allies. you may have more allies around you than you realize, but they’re too afraid to come out as such in the community, but may be happy to vote for equality in privacy (or say they will to a pollster).
which reminds me, i was really happy to hear of this program PFLAG started about a year ago, Straight For Equality. a very important thing it does is helps shy allies come out as allies.
Speaking as a Texan living in TexasThe younger (40 and under) generation believe we deserve civil union rights and cannot understand (as many across the country) why we do not have them. The oldsters are still in charge though, especially in the legislature and supreme court.
And on top of that, we have old stodgy Republicans from Governor Big Hair (closeted!) Rick Perry running things…this current election in the state only yields ONE candidate for Governor who is for Gay Marriage openly and is not using the usual rhetoric – and that is immigrant businessman Farouk Shami….I’m voting for him.
I pray others will as well, since business as usual in Texas is like Washington, cronies everywhere and the Democratic party has not had a VIBRANT viable candidate since Ann Richards (bless her soul!)….everyone else they trot out are people no one has even heard of….we’re just spinning and spinning here in Texas.
Polls lose their meaningwhen it’s mob rule at the voting booth.
depends on what they’re voting fori’d wager that what these polls say is that most Texans aren’t against electing pro-equality legislators. voting on marriage itself for queers is, as you note, another matter.