Poll: N.J. Prefers Gay Marriage

As New Jersey marks the six-month anniversary of the civil unions law this Sunday, a new statewide Zogby Poll shows majorities of voters favoring changing the law to full marriage equality for same-sex couples. The poll of 803 New Jersey voters was taken from August 8 through 10, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent. Though Garden State Equality commissioned the poll, Zogby collected the data independently.

As of today, 1,514 couples have gotten civil-unioned in New Jersey. Garden State Equality alone has heard from 242 civil-unioned couples reporting that their employers are not recognizing their civil unions. The poll asked:

"If public officials in New Jersey come to the conclusion that civil unions for gay couples have not worked to provide equality under the law, and that the way to fix the law is to give gay couples the same right to marry as heterosexual couples, would you be fine with that or would you be upset by that?" 63% responded "fine with that," while only 31% responded "upset by that."

The poll also provides key political information to legislators for when they consider changing civil unions to marriage equality. The poll asked:

"Which of the following do you think is most likely to happen to legislators if they were to allow gay couples to marry? Those legislators would not be reelected, or nothing because people care about other issues more." 72% said nothing would happen to legislators, while only 21% said legislators would not be reelected.

In response to the question, "Regardless of where you stand on the issue of allowing gay couples to marry, do you agree or disagree that gay couples will be allowed to get married in New Jersey in a couple of years anyway?", 61% agreed, while only 29% disagreed.

The poll also asked the baseline question testing support for marriage equality versus civil unions in two different ways. When voters were asked: "New Jersey allows gay couples to enter into civil unions but not marry. Do you agree or disagree that New Jersey should give gay couples the same freedom to marry as heterosexual couples?" Some 48% supported marriage equality, while 45% opposed it.

But when voters were asked: "Which of the following comes closest to your own point of view: (A) If gay couples want to marry, let them. It will ensure equality and will not affect marriages of heterosexual couples anyway. (B) Allow gay couples to enter into civil unions, but not marriage. Allowing gay couples to marry will hurt the institution of marriage. (C) Do not allow gay couples to marry or enter into civil unions," 48% of voters supported marriage equality, 30% supported civil unions but no more, and 20% supported neither marriage nor civil unions for same-sex couples.

The difference between the two questions may have been the concept of marriage for gay couples hurting the institution of marriage, the primary argument of marriage-equality opponents that New Jersey voters clearly reject.

"Regardless of whether any public official supports marriage equality or wants to maintain the state's failed civil unions law," says Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality, "no official in New Jersey can credibly say that marriage for gay couples is a divisive issue in the state. Even voters who oppose marriage equality are ready to accept an upgrade of the state's civil unions law to real marriage equality."

Watch more breaking news on our video feed:

Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.

Majority In Poll Say Bloggers Important To Journalism

A majority of Americans (55%) in an online survey say bloggers are important to the future of American journalism and 74% say citizen journalism will play a vital role, according to a new poll.

Most respondents (53%) also say the rise of free Internet-based media pose the greatest opportunity to the future of professional journalism and three in four (76%) say the Internet has had a positive impact on the overall quality of journalism.

The results are based on a recent We Media -- Zogby Interactive poll.

The We Media survey results were released by iFOCOS and pollster John Zogby as part of an iFOCOS conference on media innovation hosted by theSchool of Communication at the University of Miami, with major support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

In the national survey of adults, 72% say they were dissatisfied with the quality of American journalism today. A majority of conference-goers who were polled on the subject agreed -- 55% say they were dissatisfied,and 61% say they believed traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news.

Nearly nine out of 10 media insiders (86%) say they believe bloggers will play an important part in journalism's future.

"We are now seeing mainstream acceptance of what we call the Power of Us -- the value, credibility, and vital expression of citizen and collaborative media," says Dale Peskin, a managing director of iFOCOS, the organization that conducts the annual We Media conference. "We've arrivedat a tipping point. A new definition of democratic media is emerging in our society."

Peskin says that, until recently, many traditional news enterpriseshave been skeptical about We Media. "They were either fearful or dismissive of our 2003 research forecasting and documenting the change in the media ecosystem," he says. "Now the Zogby poll provides additional evidence that 'We Media' is an essential component -- perhaps the essential component --for the agenda for news and information into the future."

"The research documents the widespread recognition that control and influence on how we know what we know is shifting to a vastly moredistributed network of empowered individuals and organizations," says Andrew Nachison, co- founder of iFOCOS. "This obviously will have a big impact on how media organizations evolve and conduct business, but it's really about how we all discover, create, share and apply information, and that's important to all industries, to entrepreneurs, to non-profits, to governments, to individuals and to society as a whole. We are all part of the ecosystem."

The Zogby Interactive survey of 5,384 adults nationwide was conducted Jan. 30 - Feb. 1, and carries a margin of error of +/- 1.4 percentage points. The Zogby Interactive survey of 77 members of the media who attended the Miami conference carries a margin of error of +/- 11.4 percentage points. While periodic audits show the results from Zogbytelephone and Internet surveys closely track each other, a companion telephone survey of this topic was not conducted.

Bookmark http://universeeverything.blogspot.com/ and drop back in sometime.