More people in Pennsylvania support
than oppose gay marriage, a new poll concludes.
According to the Franklin &
Marshall College Poll, conducted for the
Philadelphia Daily News, exactly 50 percent of residents
either strongly or somewhat favor giving gay and lesbian couples the
right to marry. That's an 8 percent increase since 2009.
When pollsters asked, “The state
legislature is considering several proposals related to gay marriage
and civil unions. Would you favor or oppose a constitutional
amendment that would allow homosexual couples to get legally
marriage?” 42 percent of respondents said they would either
strongly or somewhat oppose the proposal.
Opposition dropped to 34 percent when
the question was asked about civil unions. And a solid 62 percent of
respondents support such unions, an increase of 20 percent since
2004.
“The gay rights movement is a
movement of education,” Mark Segal, publisher of gay weekly the
Philadelphia Gay News, told the paper. Segal added that
Americans are increasingly seeing marriage equality as a civil rights
issue.
Pennsylvania Republicans in recent
years have failed in attempts to approve a constitutional amendment
that would define marriage as a heterosexual union, but with GOP
majorities in both houses of the Legislature and a Republican
governor the effort remains in play.
But proponents of marriage for gay
couples say it's only a matter of time.
“This is inevitable. It will happen
here,” State Senator Daylin Leach said of a gay marriage law. “I
would like it to happen in Pennsylvania before it happens in
Mississippi.”