Civitas Poll: Majority of Voters Still Support Marriage Amendment

Lawsuit Challenging Current Marriage Law Could Have Impact

March 6, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Francis De Luca (919) 834-2099
francis.deluca@NCCivitas.org

Raleigh, N.C. – A majority, 64 percent, of North Carolina voters say they support a constitutional amendment that establishes marriage between one man and woman as the only recognized domestic legal union in the state.

Sixty-four percent of respondents said they support a constitutional amendment that says marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in the state.  Thirty percent said they oppose it and six percent are undecided or do not know.

While Black voters continue to strongly back the marriage amendment by a 40% margin the biggest move this month over last was the move of unaffiliated voters from a plus 11 percent margin in January to a plus 24 percent margin in February in support of the marriage amendment.

When asked a follow up question concerning a lawsuit filed by the Guilford County Register of Deeds seeking to declare North Carolina’s current marriage law unconstitutional, sixty percent of respondents said that would make them more likely to support the Amendment, which includes twenty percent of those who say they opposed the amendment when first asked.

“The amendment continues to hold broad support among almost all groups,” said Civitas Institute President Francis De Luca. “If the Guilford County lawsuit becomes part of the amendment campaign story it could potentially increase the winning margin for the amendment,” concluded De Luca.

The Civitas Poll is the only regular live-caller poll of critical issues facing North Carolina.  For more information on Civitas polling see http://www.nccivitas.org/category/poll/.

Full Text of Questions:

“Do you support or oppose a constitutional amendment that says: ‘Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this state.”

Total Support – 64%
Total Oppose – 30%
Strongly Support – 57%
Somewhat Support – 6%
Somewhat Oppose – 5%
Strongly Oppose – 24%
Undecided/Don’t Know – 6%

“A lawsuit was filed recently by the elected Guilford (GILL-ford) County Register of Deeds that seeks to  declare North Carolina marriage laws unconstitutional, because they don’t allow same sex partners to marry.

However, there is a proposed marriage amendment that would protect traditional marriage from suits like this.  The proposed amendment would prevent a judge from declaring marriage as only between one man and one woman as unconstitutional.

With that information, would you be more likely or less likely to support the marriage amendment that would protect traditional marriage?”

60%    Total More Likely
27%    Total Less Likely
49%     Much More Likely
11%     Somewhat More Likely
8%       Somewhat Less Likely
19%     Much Less Likely
12%     Don’t Know/ No Opinion
1%       Refused

For the full results and crosstabs, click here.

This poll of 600 likely 2012 general election voters in North Carolina was conducted February 27-28, 2012 by National Research, Inc. of Holmdel, NJ.  All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of likely 2012 general election voters in North Carolina.  For purposes of this study, voters interviewed had to have voted in at least one of the past three general elections (2006, 2008, 2010) or be newly registered to vote since November 2, 2010.

The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95 percent of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within +-4% of the “True Values.” True Values refer to the results obtained if it were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in at least one of the past three general elections or is newly registered since November 2, 2010.

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