Los Angeles, Calif., Jul 27, 2010 / 01:05 am
After the Los Angeles Times ran a piece citing a “nonpartisan” survey showing that the majority of Californians support same-sex “marriage,” Mollie Hemingway from Get Religion accused the poll of being skewed as it was conducted by a group that explicitly supports same-sex unions.
On July 22, the LA Times ran an article by Ann M. Simmons titled, “1 in 4 Californians have grown more supportive of gay rights, survey finds,” citing a “Washington D.C. - based nonprofit” group as conducting the poll.
Simmons wrote that that the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) “examined the attitudes of Californians toward same-sex marriage” in a “nonpartisan” poll that was comprised of random phone interviews with more than 3,300 residents over the course of two weeks in June. The institute focused their research on examining the “attitudes” of Californians towards the Proposition 8 measure, which passed in 2008 and defines marriage as between one man and one woman in the state.
“An overwhelming majority of Californians – 75% – said they favored laws that would protect gays and lesbians from job discrimination, 69% said they supported allowing homosexuals to openly serve in the military and 56% favored allowing gay couples to adopt children,” Simmons reported.