Over 62 percent of Iowa voters oppose same-sex marriage, according to poll results released last Thursday by the University of Iowa. The statewide survey of 586 Iowa voters found that only 28.1 percent supported gay marriage.
A case before the Iowa Supreme Court next week could cause Iowans to call for a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman, the survey found.
Varnum vs. Brien, to be heard Dec. 9, involves six same-sex couples who filed a lawsuit in Polk County challenging the definition of marriage as a union between a man and woman. Polk County Judge Robert Hanson sided with the couples in August 2007, and then suspended his ruling pending an appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court.
If the Iowa Supreme Court sides with Judge Hanson and overturns Iowa law, only 35.4 percent of Iowans surveyed in the recent poll said they would accept that decision. Another 55.4 percent indicated they would support a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, if the Supreme Court upheld Hanson’s decision.
The poll was conducted Oct. 19-22 as part of the Big Ten Battleground Poll, a survey done in Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota, home to the 11 universities in the Big Ten Conference. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
The same-sex marriage questions were asked only in Iowa. The Big Ten Poll mirrored the Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll of 801 adults in February which also found 62 percent of Iowans thought marriage should be only between a man and a woman. Support for same sex marriage was nearly 4 percentage points higher in the February poll at 32 percent.
While the overwhelming support for marriage has remained steady in the Hawkeye state, support for same-sex marriage has evidently waned over the last year.
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