| There are plenty of interesting things in the Q poll released today that I have already covered and plenty more that will be covered.
The subject of marriage equality was brought up in the poll and deserves its own post, mainly because there are a few key factors at play that affect the support (or opposition) for marriage equality.
The Q poll found that 47 percent of New Yorkers support marriage equality and 46 percent oppose it. There are a small percentage of individuals - seven percent - who don't know or have no opinion on the issue.
Support for marriage equality in the Q poll has fluctuated slightly this year. In May, support and opposition to equality were even at 46 percent. In June, however, that increased to 51 percent (a majority of voters) saying they supported marriage equality with 41 percent opposing.
This Q poll breaks it down to where the support and opposition come from. And the three major factors at work are age, education and income.
AGE
The most support for marriage equality in terms of age falls in the obvious category: Young people ages 18 to 34. This is where 58 percent of respondents said they support marriage equality while only 37 percent oppose it. This isn't surprising, as these numbers are in line with what we have seen in other states where marriage equality is a hot-button issue.
Even though that younger generation is where strong support lies, there is support for marriage equality in the 35 to 54 age group. More respondents - 48 percent - support marriage equality than those who oppose it (45 percent). This age group, like in another states, is considered the turning point.
When the question is asked of those over 55, the support for marriage equality decreases significantly to 37 percent with 56 percent opposing equal rights.
Therefore, there is a strong conclusion to make: The younger a person is, the more likely they are to support marriage equality. Or to go the other way, the older a person is, the more likely they are to oppose marriage equality.
INCOME
Who knew that one of the factors at work in the marriage equality debate is income? But that's exactly what the Q poll tells us.
In the category of those making under $50,000, 42 percent said they support marriage equality while 51 percent said they oppose it. Support became stronger in the $50,000 to $100,000 population with 46 percent supporting marriage equality and 48 percent saying they opposed marriage equality.
The greatest support for marriage equality comes from those making over $100,000. A strong majority of these individuals - 59 percent - said they support marriage equality while only 34 percent said they opposed it.
The conclusion to draw from the poll is a clear one. The greater a person's income, the more likely they are to support marriage equality. The lower the person's income, the more likely they are to oppose marriage equality.
EDUCATION
The education of voters plays a big role in where they stand on certain issues and who they vote for, what party they support, among other things. This is a fact we have known for some time. You can tell a lot by a voter just based on one question: Do you have a college education (or more specifically, a college degree)?
The Q poll found that there was opposition to marriage equality among those without a college education. In this group, 52 percent of those surveyed said they opposed marriage equality and 41 percent said they supported it. Those numbers aren't bad, although they do reinforce the point about education and politics.
It should be no surprise that those with a college education supported marriage equality (59 percent) in huge numbers compared to those who opposed it (35 percent).
The more education a person has, the more likely they are to support marriage equality. Education has a huge impact on this and, I might argue, that the college experience opens your mind up to a diverse audience. On a personal level, I didn't have any friends among the LGBT community in high school (at least at the time). But in college, I encountered many people, including those who lived in a nearby room or went to the same classes as I did that were a part of the LGBT community.
CONCLUSION
I have made other conclusions pertinent to the individual subjects, but there is also one conclusion to draw from this poll that couldn't be made in the other areas. This issue is highly complicated. For progressives, we see this as a cut-and-dry issue. We should grant equality to everyone, not just a certain group and we should not let outside influences (i.e. religious leaders) tell us otherwise. I know that African Americans have opposed marriage equality efforts. How soon they have forgotten their own plight and their own efforts to gain equality. Religious leaders forget the beginnings of our country, when this nation was founded by a large group of those seeking religious freedom. If equality was important to them (and presumably still is), it should be important to us all. If we don't live by that guiding principle, we fail to live up to our founders who said in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
We must not forget those words. They are not reserved for one group over another. They are reserved for everyone who calls this country home and who deserve to be treated with the proper respect and afforded the same rights as everyone else. |
