Well, would you look at that.

[featherynscale]

Well, this just about makes my morning: Fox News (yeah, that Fox News) poll shows a plurality of respondents favor civil unions for same-sex couples. Granted, the question asked does specify that proposed civil unions would not be marriages, but still - positive movement.

Don't get me wrong, I'm after marriage rights for everybody, but I'm willing to accept this civil union thing as a temporary measure.

Comments

Mmmm, statistics

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Even more interesting to me is the comparison between the Fox News poll and the ABC News poll.

FOX: "Do you support or oppose allowing homosexual couples to form civil unions that are not marriages, but would give gay couples rights such as inheritance, insurance and hospital visiting privileges?"

Support Oppose Not Sure
9/03 46 44 10

ABC: "Do you think homosexual couples should or should not be allowed to form legally recognized civil unions, giving them the legal rights of married couples in areas such as health insurance, inheritance and pension coverage?"

Should Should Not No Opinion
9/03 40 51 9

Now, my analytical little brain sees one major difference between these two polls: One uses support/oppose, the other uses should/should not. I think there's a semantic factor here, that I've seen in other polls recently but never quite so starkly. "Oppose" is an active verb; you have to take an action to oppose something. Hence, people may be less likely to commit to 'opposing' an action they feel ambivalent about. Just saying someone "should not" do something puts the responsibility for action/inaction back on them again, something the Moral Minority is famous for.

But that's just me; I could be wrong. Either way the poll is interesting in the way it highlights what a trigger word "marriage" is, and possibly encouraging for the long term.

Re: Mmmm, statistics

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

See, I saw that too, and considered the verb, but was more into the dynamics of "that are not marriages" vs. "giving them the legal rights of married couples". In the first example, the possibility is left open for respondents (respondants?) to think that the civil union is sort of a marriage, second class - which I think appeals to the "compassionate conservatives" - in the second, even though the message is the same, the surface structure places civil union and marriage on a more even footing.

I think you're missing something else though - the second doesn't ask "should gay couples do this?" but "should they be allowed to do this?" That tweaks the function of the question to include measuring where respondents fall on an authoritarian/libertarian continuum, as well as what they think about this particular issue.

Yay! I could talk about the language and structure of polling questions for days - psychometrics and research design were my favorites in college. (And semantics has been a favorite forever.)

[themadblonde]

Well, from a purely inferential perspective, saying you "support" something is much more active & personal than saying that something "should be allowed." I know a lot of people who might agree that we should be "allowed" to have sex, but don't necessarily SUPPORT same-sex-sex. Just like someone might agree that terrorists should be allowed to have public defenders, but might not admit to supporting terrorists' "rights." That's an extreme example but there are still a benighted few who see same-sex relationships/sex as a kind of "attack" on what they think should be "common values."

To me, it comes down to the difference between saying "somebody should do something" & realising, "hey, _I'M_ somebody." -Karen

Re: Mmmm, statistics

[kittenpants.livejournal.com]

Yup, I agree with featherynscale here.

What's really sad is that "Should gays get civil unions that allow them the same legal rights as married people?" and "Should gays get civil unions that allow them legal rights in insurance, inheritance, hospital visits, and pension?" Get totally different answers based around the presence of the M word.

I still think that if the United Church of Christ, Unitarian Universalists, and most Pagans define marriage to include gays, and more conservative religions/denominations define it to exclude gays, then when you have the government stepping in and codifying which religion's definition of marriage is legal, you're stepping all over the 1st amendment. Marriage should not be legally defined anywhere. Gays, straights, bis, etc. should all have 'civil unions' for the legal purposes of insurance and inheritance, and marriage should be a separate thing, untouched by government.

I mean, if a UU minister were to marry two gay people, and then have the marriage rejected by the government, then the UUA could sue the gov't for religious descrimination, right? Then it would escalate to the supreme court, and they'd either have to rule that marriage is purely secular and so can be regulated by the gov't (not bloody likely, that'll piss off both sides of the spectrum), or that distinctions need to be made between religious ceremonies and legal unions.