QUICKLINKS: Obits NEWCOMERS GUIDESearch Browse by date Thu, Nov 3, 2005Wed, Nov 2, 2005Tue, ... Poll says state split regardin | Life Insurance
Home

QUICKLINKS: Obits NEWCOMERS GUIDESearch Browse by date Thu, Nov 3, 2005Wed, Nov 2, 2005Tue, ... Poll says state split regardin

Arkansans who answered an annual University of Arkansas poll split on gay rights, saying they would allow gays to serve in the armed forces and approve of a law to allow gays to adopt children but would disapprove of a law to forbid workplace discrimination against homosexuals or allow gay marriages.

A strong majority of the 766 respondents disapproved of homosexual relationships, said the 2005 Arkansas Poll director, Janine Parry. But many also were unwilling “to dictate the course of someone else's life,” she said.

The pollsters initially thought responses regarding gays' rights within the domestic sphere and rights outside the home might diverge, said Parry, a political science associate professor at UA-Fayetteville, but the differences didn't turn out to be so clear-cut.

John Thomas of the Family Council of Arkansas, conservative research and education organization, said the result shows that 63 percent don't support civil unions or domestic partnerships, although included in the poll's 63 percent who didn't approve of such relationships are 9 percentage points of those who said they didn't know or refused to answer.

“That is probably fairly close to reality, considering a three-point margin of error,” said Thomas, a spokesman for the group, “although I think the 63 percent number is low, given almost 75 percent of voters last November wouldn't support gay marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships” by approving a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between one man and one woman.

Dwayne J. Bensing, a University of Arkansas student who is president of a gay-student group on the Fayetteville campus, also noticed the poll differed from the voters ' decision on the constitutional amendment.

Bensing believes, and Parry said polls typically indicate, that younger people tend to hold more tolerant views on rights for homosexuals. The 2005 Arkansas Poll's median-age range of 45 to 54 years of age was a decade older than the median-age range for Arkansans, he noted.

Bensing and Rita Sklar, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, agreed that results seem to show that homosexuals who “come out of the closet” tend to encourage the general public toward more tolerance of gay rights.

With all the recent national activity on marriage and civil union issues by state voters and the courts, people are still processing new information, said Page, whose Little Rock-based group represents evangelical churches in public policy.

On this and other questions, respondents said they were most influenced in their attitudes toward homosexual relationships by their religious teachings, with 45 percent citing them as the greatest persuasive factor in their thinking. In contrast, 19 percent of those polled said that knowing someone who is homosexual molded their attitudes.

“Early analyses show that frequent churchgoing and knowing someone who's gay seem to be the best predictors of attitudes on these issues,” she said.

Arkansas is among several states studying attitudes that drive policies affecting gay and lesbian rights, Parry said. She added that she is collaborating with scholars in California, Alabama, and New York on similar polls, and this year's 2005 Arkansas Poll is an expansion of last year's poll data on gay marriage specifically that her team collected along with Michigan and Ohio.

Other findings : The percentage of Arkansans who favor stricter gun control laws dropped two percentage points, to 36 percent, from the poll's results the last two years. Overall, that's a drop from 50 percent in 1999, the poll's first year. The percentage who favor laws making it more difficult to get an abortion was 44 percent, continuing a slight weaving that reflects little change since the Arkansas poll's early days. In 1999, 45 percent of those polled favored such laws, a percentage that alternately shifted up or down each year by two to five percentage points. Regarding the economy, 28 percent answered they were better off financially compared with one year earlier, down from 30 percent in 2004. This also was a drop from 37 percent in 1999 and a high of 41 percent in 2001.

Education was cited as the second-most important problem or issue facing Arkansans, with 16 percent of the response, while the economy came in first at 31 percent, and gas and fuel prices, health insurance, crime and taxes trailed in single-digit percentages. 56 percent said they completely trust or somewhat trust the public schools, and on another education question they said they trusted local and state governments much more than the federal government to improve the public school system.

This is cache, read story here

admin – Thu, 2005 – 11 – 03 12:00