California voters opposed to revisiting Prop. 8 in 2010 election, poll says

Los Angeles, Calif., Nov 14, 2009 / 23:36 pm

A new poll shows that almost 60 percent of California voters show they don’t want an initiative seeking to overturn Proposition 8 on the 2010 ballot.

Prop. 8 overturned a California Supreme Court decision which instated same-sex “marriage.” It passed in the 2008 election by 52 to 48 percent.

A poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times surveyed 1,500 voters and found about 60 percent did not want to revisit the issue.

“The survey showed that same-sex marriage continues to reverberate differently along racial and generational lines,” the Times reported. “A little more than half of whites backed it, while slightly fewer than half of African Americans and Latinos did. All three groups, however, opposed having to vote on it in 2010.”

The Los Angeles Times reported that 51 percent of those polled expressed support for same-sex “marriage” while 43 percent said they were opposed.

According to the California Catholic Daily, advocates of same-sex “marriage” are divided on whether to work for the repeal of Prop. 8 in 2010 or wait for 2012, when more voters are likely to go to the polls.

Those seeking to place a repeal initiative on the 2010 ballot submitted a letter to the attorney general with the proposed wording of the measure. Among its nine signatories were Fr. Geoffrey Farrow, a former Fresno diocesan priest suspended from his parish and banned from his diocese.

Petitions seeking to qualify the repeal initiative are being circulated by a group which calls itself Yes! On Equality. California Catholic Daily reports that the group appears unlikely to gather the 695,000 signatures required before the Nov. 19 deadline.

Equality California, which led opposition to Prop. 8 in 2008, announced that its leaders have decided to wait until 2012 to seek appeal.

In August the group published an analysis on its website which noted the “sobering points” that support for same-sex “marriage” is stagnant in the state and that there was no “buyers’ remorse” about the outcome of the election.

The analysis also noted that the majority of younger voters opposed Proposition 8. Equality California predicted that supporters of the traditional definition of marriage will die off, assuming that younger voters do not change their opinions on same-sex "marriage."

California Catholic Daily reports that polls on the issue have been shown to be unreliable. Polls before the Prop. 8 vote suggested it would be defeated. Maine polls about Question 1 said the measure was opposed and supported equally, but the initiative rejecting same-sex “marriage” was victorious by a margin of 53 to 47 percent.

Ballot initiatives rejecting same-sex “marriage” have been passed in 31 U.S. states.