Voters are less likely to support
presidential candidates who favor gay marriage bans, a new ABC
News/Washington Post poll found.
Forty-two percent of respondents said
they would be less likely to support a candidate who favors a
constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, while 25 percent said
they would be more likely to support such a candidate. Only 20
percent said they would be much more likely.
A plurality of Republican-leaning
respondents, however, said they supported such candidates.
Thirty-eight percent of Republicans
said they would be more likely to support a candidate who favors a
constitutional amendment banning gay men and lesbians from marrying,
including 29 percent who said they would be much more likely, while
27 percent said they would be less likely to support such a
candidate.
Jamison Foser at Equality Matters
crunched the numbers to conclude that 47 percent of Democrats and
independents would be less likely to support a candidate who favors
gay marriage bans, while 21 percent would.
“[A]mong the vast majority of
Americans who are not Republican base voters, support for a ban on
gay marriage is increasingly toxic,” Foser
noted.
And when pollsters asked of
Republican-leaning respondents, “What's the single most important
issue to you in your choice for the Republican candidate for
president?” fifty-one percent answered the economy, while only 3
percent cited social issues (asked as moral/family values).