Gays Gaining Acceptance in State, Poll Finds

While they remain opposed to same-sex marriage, Californians overwhelmingly believe gays and lesbians should not face discrimination because of their sexual orientation, according to a poll to be released today.

The survey, funded by two gay and lesbian organizations, found that public sentiment toward homosexuals on a wide range of issues has warmed since a similar poll was taken a year ago.

“On every significant issue, Californians’ attitudes are moving in the right direction for the gay and lesbian community,” said Bob Meadow, the Washington-based researcher who conducted the poll.

Meadow and others suspect that the changing picture stems from the bitter battle over Proposition 22, the successful March ballot initiative barring state recognition of same-sex marriages. By highlighting the discrimination some homosexuals face, the campaign against the ballot measure heightened public sensitivity to gays’ everyday struggles, Meadow said.

“When you have a battle like Proposition 22, you always worry about a backlash,” said David Smith of the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington-based gay advocacy organization that jointly funded the poll. “What these results show is that there was no backlash.”

That conclusion is a pleasant surprise for many gay and lesbian leaders, who had warned that the initiative would nourish anti-gay sentiment--and spark efforts to roll back legal gains won by homosexuals in recent years.

Instead, while 57% of California voters remain opposed to allowing gays to legally marry, a solid 81% also oppose discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the poll showed.

And while 42% of respondents said they believe homosexuality is morally wrong, a larger proportion--54%--say homophobia is morally wrong.

The survey also underscored the generation gap in attitudes toward gays and lesbians. Nearly two-thirds of 18-to-29-year-olds believe homosexuals face discrimination, while only about half of Californians over 40 believe so.

“This poll gives us reason to be optimistic that gays and lesbians will enjoy stronger protections and full civil rights in the future,” said Peter Teague of the Horizons Foundation, the other sponsor of the poll.

Despite such sunny predictions, the reality in Sacramento has not been as bright. After the passage of Proposition 22, lawmakers who champion gay causes introduced a flurry of bills to strengthen the rights of California’s domestic partnerships--the only legal alternative to married status.

Those bills have since been combined into one, a move deemed necessary because of perennial problems obtaining votes from legislators under pressure to oppose bills perceived as friendly to gays.

Among other things, that bill (AB 2047) provides domestic partners with the right to make medical decisions if one partner is incapacitated; the right to inherit property if one partner dies without a will and the right to be appointed as a conservator.

Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), a coauthor of the bill, said it faces an uncertain fate in the Assembly later this month. She said she and the bill’s other authors will meet with Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) after the budget is settled to determine how to proceed.

“He may say wait until next year, or he may say we have 41 [Assembly] votes for it,” Kuehl said. “It’s very difficult on these close votes to know whether someone will step up to the plate and do the right thing or not.”

Eric Astacaan, a lobbyist for the California Alliance for Pride and Equality, called the iffy support for the bill a disappointment

“We were hopeful that there would be more support for domestic partnership issues this year, but it just wasn’t there,” said Astacaan. He added that one important element of Kuehl’s original bill--the right of a domestic partner to sue for wrongful death or negligent infliction of emotional distress--had been scrapped.

The poll of 1,200 Californians was conducted in April, shortly after voters approved Proposition 22 by 59% to 41%. Many of the same questions were asked a year earlier in another poll, also conducted by Meadow’s firm, Decision Research.

Other findings included:

* A 10% increase in those who believe gays and lesbians want to marry to express love and commitment, and a 6% decrease in those who believe they wish to wed to promote a gay agenda.

* A 5% increase in those who strongly oppose denying civil rights on the basis of homosexuality.

* A 7% decrease in those who do not believe gays and lesbians experience discrimination.