LA and SF Strongly Support Marriage Equality

The San Francisco Chronicle has even more interesting tidbits on the Field Poll which, for the first time, showed a majority of Californians (or even more importantly, registered voters!) support marriage equality 51% to 42%.

The heavily Democratic urban areas strongly support same-sex marriage; 55 percent of Los Angeles County and an overwhelming 68 percent of the Bay Area are in favor. By contrast, only 38 percent of the Central Valley and 41 percent of Southern California outside of Los Angeles are in favor.

Same-sex marriage also digs a chasm between California's heavily populated coast and its inland areas; 55 percent of coastal voters back same-sex marriage compared with 40 percent in support inland.

The issue divides along liberal-conservative lines; 85 percent of strong liberals are in favor, and 85 percent of strong conservatives are opposed.

Protestants, who make up a third of the state's voters, oppose same-sex marriage 34 percent to 57 percent, while Catholics are split almost equally, 45 percent in favor to 48 percent opposed. Those with no religious preference back same-sex marriage 81 percent to 12 percent.

America will be watching the fall campaign over same-sex marriage, which will have national implications, said Kors of Equality California.

"It's going to be an intense and enormous undertaking, but we're confident we'll win," he said. "But we also know that the other side is out there working just as hard and feeling just as confident."

The poll is based on a telephone survey of 1,052 registered voters taken May 17-26. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points

Note the California Supreme Court ruling was announced on May 15, 2008 so the poll was conducted immediately after it was being publicized. Winning 55% in Los Angeles County is not good enough. Equality for All needs to get that up to 60% in order to win statewide.

It will be interesting to see what the polling will look like once the discriminatory constitutional amendment qualifies for the ballot sometime soon.

However, it will also be interesting to see what happens to the poll numbers when literally thousands of same-sex couples flock to California to get married starting June 14 June 17.