Mitofsky on Same-Sex Marriage

Here's the report that Carlos Loret was referring to last week. Some relevant findings: 46 percent of Mexicans said that homosexual couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples, compared to 47 who did not feel that way. Thirty-three percent of respondents felt that gay couples should be allowed to marry, compared to 58 percent who said that they shouldn't.

Interestingly, there is greater hostility toward lesbian couples than homosexual male couples, at least in terms of child-rearing: 33 percent said that an all-female couple should be able to adopt a child, compared to 58 percent who went the other way, while the corresponding figures for men were 23 and 68 percent. (Then again, maybe that's not so interesting, and is typical of such polling; I've never seen the two findings compared before.)

Digging a little deeper, the salient variable here is age: the young were more open to rights for same-sex couples across the word. For instance, 53 percent of people aged 18 to 29 said that gay couples should have the same rights as heterosexual pairs, and 40 percent said that they should be allowed to marry, which is seven and eight points above the norm, respectively. The corresponding figures for people 50 and up were 35 percent for equal rights and 22 percent for marriage.

It's interesting that there is not a corresponding slant for educational level; on virtually every issue, people with a primary school education or less were the least likely to support gay rights. But the Mexicans with a university degree weren't the most likely to support gay rights on any single issue, and in some cases, the minority of Mexicans with a college degree lies beneath both those with just a high school and those with only a middle school education. On marriage, for instance, college-education Mexicans are six points below the national average.