New Jersey Still Supports Marriage

Timothy Kincaid

August 19th, 2008

In August 2007, Garden State Equality commissioned a poll from Zogby International to inquire about attitudes of New Jersey residents regarding same-sex marriage. They found that converting civil unions to marriage was acceptable to New Jerseyans.

They have repeated the polling again this year and found that attitudes have held steady or slightly moved in the direction of marriage equality.

When reading commissioned polls, one has to be careful that the questioning itself is not driving the answers. And with eight questions on gay marriage, and one on gay friends, at some point reliance on poll conclusions becomes a bit self-serving. This is especially true when language such as “A recent UCLA study showed that allowing same-sex marriage could add as much as a half a billion dollars to the New Jersey economy in tourism and wedding revenue over the next three years” is included in the question.

But the first question on same-sex marriage follows a series of general questions about the favorable or unfavorable opinions of elected officials and is probably worded in a manner adequate to provide a reasonable indication of public sentiment (though push words like “freedom” are included).

From August 2007:

New Jersey allows gay couples to enter into civil unions but not marry. Do you agree or disagree that New Jersey should give gay couples the same freedom to marry as heterosexual couples?

Agree 48.1%
Disagree 44.6%
Not Sure 7.2%

From August 2008:

Currently, New Jersey lets same-sex couples enter only into civil unions, while California and Massachusetts give same-sex couples the freedom to marry. Do you support or oppose same-sex couples in New Jersey also getting the freedom to marry?

Support 50.1%
Oppose 42.3%
Not Sure 7.6%

Even disallowing a bit for the advocacy language of the questions, I think we can conclude that more residents of New Jersey support same-sex marriage than oppose it.

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