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For the 5th year in a row, the number of pro-equality voters in Washington state is increasing. Last week The Washington Poll released the results of their annual fall poll of likely voters on questions including this one:
Q: Which of the following statements best describes your views on the issue of same-sex marriage?
Gay and lesbian couples should have the same legal right to marry as straight couples.
Gay and lesbian couples should be able to have the same legal rights as stright couples but it should not be called marriage.
There should be domestic partnerships that give gay and lesbian couples only some of the benefits and protections of marriage.
There should be no legal recognition of gay and lesbian couples.
Dunno/Getoffmylawn
The Washington Poll is a non-partisan academic survey research project sponsored by the University of Washington’s Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race & Sexuality. They first asked this question in 2006. I combed through previous reports so that we could look at the most recent results in historical context. Looking at the graph above, the positive, unwavering trend towards equality is very clear.
We saw this statistical trend validated last year when almost 53% of the Washington electorate voted to ratify the new comprehensive domestic partnership law via Referendum 71 (a national first!). A post-election analysis showed that 38 of Washington’s 39 counties had demonstrated an increase in pro-equality voting since the last time an LGBT measure was on the ballot.
So we’re ready to push for marriage equality in the legislature, right? Well, not so fast.
The really great news is that besides the almost 40% of voters strongly supporting marriage equality, another 29% of voters in Washington State believe gay and lesbian couples should be legally recognized with full domestic partnerships. But from here it gets a little more complicated. The graph to the right should make you drool. I’ve combined the results from the Washington Poll graph above into two pots: voters who support marriage equality or full domestic partnerships, and voters who support limited domestic partnerships or no legal recognition for lesbian and gay couples. In the Land of Wishful Thinking, we’re nearing 70% support when you look at this way. Do not look at it this way. Then why am I showing you this? So that you can see that we have great potential for success in Washington if we marshal our resources over the next 2 years..
Strong support for marriage equality currently polls somewhere close to 40%. Taking a sober look at that number is vital because Washington is a referendum state and any marriage equality law passed by the legislature will almost certainly need to be defended at the polls. The wild card are the 29% percent of voters who support giving same-sex couples all the rights and benefits of marriage but don’t want the legal status called marriage. While many of these voters will ultimately support marriage equality we can’t even count on a majority of them. And here is what we know about how voters actually behave when it comes to marriage referenda and initiatives.
* Pre-election polls consistently underestimate opposition to marriage equality.
* We cannot change voters’ attitudes on marriage equality during the course of an election campaign.
These facts are well known to our leadership in the Washington state Legislature, and Senator Ed Murray for one has said he will file but not push a marriage equality bill until he’s satisfied that the electorate is ready to ratify it at the polls.
Equal Rights Washington’s Executive Director Josh Friedes says we are at the point where we can seriously start talking about winning marriage equality at the ballot box as early as November 2012. According to Friedes, what we need to do over the next 18 months is explain to voters why full domestic partnerships are not equivalent to marriage.
Part of this conversation has to be sharing our personal stories and the stories of people we care about. We need to help people see that domestic partnerships don’t provide the dignity every person is entitled to. Another part of the conversation has to be explaining how domestic partnerships do not attempt to confer the federal protections of marriage such as Social Security protections, immigration rights and equal treatment under the IRS tax code. Lastly we need to address the concerns many voters have, we need to ask adult children of same-sex couples to speak out so that ambivalent voters can see that our children grow up to be productive and well adjusted.It takes a long time for voters to move on family recognition issues so we need to start now and since the key is personal conversations we need to fund an educational program that allows us to reach out to the 40% of voters who already strongly support marriage equality and ask them to speak to their social networks.
Friedes says that its not so much that the work is hard, as it is costly. In California and Maine the money came too late.
We need to fully fund a comprehensive education program that starts to roll out by mid 2011, if we have any intention of winning marriage on the ballot in November 2012.
So what’s the moral of the story? The latest poll results are incredibly encouraging, but we still have a lot of work to do, and it is work that cannot be put off until some electoral crunch time. I’m game. Are you in?
9 Comments
The reason…Why opposition to gay marriage is underestimated is because if you break down the poll, given a choice between marriage, civil unions, and nothing, many will take the middle route. But given a choice just between marriage or no marriage, or between marriage and civil union, people vote against marriage. In some ways civil unions impede progress because people take the “its good enough” attitude.
I don’t think having DPs/CUs makes people less likely to support marriage equalityThe reason I think that is that voters have reliably voted against marriage equality in every state they’ve had the chance, and most of those states didn’t have CUs or DPs.
I think that instituting DPs or CUs performs two vital functions. First, it gives people like my wife and me sorely needed protections under state law. Second, it gets the public conversation going and normalizes the idea of state-recognized relationships for gay and lesbian couples.
YesI certainly am a big supporter of DP’s and CU’s as a step towards (but in no way a substitute for) marriage. I agree that they help pave the way, but I also think that people and politicians especially, when given a choice between YES, NO, and MAYBE, will go for the middle ground, Obama being a great example. I also think that a majority of those that support civil unions will not support marriage equality when push comes to shove. Things are getting better, but its slow, and frankly very frustrating.
so then what path should we take?
Hard to sayI would put a greater emphases on the idea that CU/DP is a temporary solution on the path towards gay marriage, not a political position. No politician should EVER get away with saying “I am for civil unions but not marriage equality”, stand with us or stand with the bigots. You can be for CU’s but only as a stopgap, and emergency measure to help people while marriage is codified into law. In retrospect, civil unions are a bad name, they should have been referred to a premarital registries or something to cement the idea that its a step towards marriage, not a substitute.
I’m happy to say that our pro-equality legislatorshave said from day one that DPs are only a vehicle to marriage equality. As you say, a stop-gap measure. The voters have had the full, honest story since the conversation began in Washington state in 2006 with the passage of the first DP law here. Voters know that the expectation is that we will not stop here but will continue to work towards full equality.
I just can’t WAIT until society “approves” of us…..…no…wait, that sounds like a VICTIM’s PLEA to the powers-that-be.
Everytime I hear folks trying to be encouraging about “progress” and “being patient”, I have to wonder if they HAVE A CLUE how things are for the thousands of us who have already lost spouses, children, homes, pensions, and/or the ability to work. If I could deport their spouse, remove their child from the home, and steal the pension they worked a lifetime to build up, and also take away all of their possessions.….since these are the first to go when you have to sell everything you own for food and rent….THEN maybe “being patient” would sound as offensive as it really is to many of us out there.
“Playing by the rules” is a joke when the rule-makers themselves sit atop a century of hateful discrimination aimed directly at our loved ones and our financial stability and psychological/emotioanl health. If anyone has trouble understanding why a peaceful, law-abiding guy would suddenly arm himself and tell the I.R.S. to back-the-fuck-off, well then you must be on the “comfortable” side of this so-called “fight”.
(it so AIN’T a fight when cardboard signs are being held up and papers are being shuffled around legal offices).
Washington State ResidentI live in Washington State. The three people in my household might vote for civil unions, but not for gay marriage. Traditional marriage has always been only between a man and a woman so I cannot look on it as “marriage equality”. Why can’t you come up with a different name and benefits to go along with it? Just a thought.
Rosie, if you live in Washington statethen you must know that we already have full domestic partnerships. So we already have “a different name and benefits to go along with it”, as you put it.
“It’s always been that way” is frankly a weak argument for maintaining the status quo. Should women have been told “Voting has always been the privilege of men so women will not be allowed to vote”? Consider that next time you have the opportunity, Rosie, to vote on other people’s civil rights.