Gay Marriage – ComRes Polls

This weekend ComRes published a whole raft of polls on the Gay Marriage issue. There are polls on general party support, ethnic minorities, general public opinion, teachers and sexual orientation minorities.

Some observations.

• The LGB survey is fascinating simply on the male / female splits. Twice as many men as women identify as LGB and the ratios within each sex are different. Male sexual minorities split two to one gay to bisexual whilst female sexual minorities split pretty much fifty / fifty. This seems to fit other research elsewhere.
• Those who self-identify as gay or lesbian are below 3% of the population. Those who are bisexual come in around 2%.
• 84% of LGB responders are not in a Civil Partnership.
• Of those LGB who would vote, almost half feel gay marriage would make Civil Partnership look second rate. Only 31% of all LGB would marry their partner if given the chance.
• 1 in 6 LGB think marriage should be restricted to just male/female unions. Less than two-thirds think it important that marriage should be extended to same-sex couples. Less than half think it is a priority for LGB people.
• LGB people think by a margin of four to one that the only reason Cameron is introducing gay marriage is image related rather than conviction based. They are split pretty evenly as to whether gay marriage might actually produce a backlash against the LGB community.
• 60% of LGB people think that equal marriage means equal access to all places of worship. Half think that the ECHR will over-rule the “Quadruple Lock” to protect the Church of England.
• Most interestingly, over half of those LGB who gave a firm response said they thought marriage should be extended to polyamorous couples.

In the general voters survey, the following observation was made.

• Over half of those surveyed said they believed marriage should remain just between a man and a woman

Finally, over a quarter of teachers said they would refuse to teach about same-sex marriage or would be unhappy doing so. Over half were concerned that teachers who expressed their opinions could be disciplined or face barriers to career progression.