70 Percent of Americans Back Either Gay Marriage or Civil Unions

Another pretty remarkable finding from the latest CBS News poll, included in full below the fold:

Which comes closest to your view? Gay couples should be allowed to legally marry, OR gay couples should be allowed to form civil unions but not legally marry, OR there should be no legal recognition of a gay couple's relationship?

Allowed to legally marry: 40 percent
Civil unions: 30 percent
No legal recognition: 25 percent

Looking deeper into these numbers, the trend appears quite favorable to the cause of gay rights: While 63 percent of Americans backed either gay marriage or civil unions in April of this year, that percentage has jumped 7 points in just four months. Majorities of every partisan grouping back such rights -- 73 percent of Democrats, 73 percent of Independents and 59 percent of Republicans -- and sizable pluralities of both Democrats and Independents favor full marriage equality (46 percent and 44 percent, respectively). While these numbers are not quite as favorable towards gay marriage as recent CNN polling, which was the first to show majority support for marriage equality, CBS News' question was slightly different, and nonetheless did show quite a favorable response towards marital rights for gay and lesbian Americans.




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