MOST Americans support marriage equality, regardless of how various polls frame the question, according to a new report from the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.

The report by Andrew R. Flores, a public opinion and policy fellow at the Williams Institute, was published in Public Opinion Quarterly and entitled “Examining Variation in Surveying Attitudes about Same-Sex Marriage: A Meta-Analysis.”

It found that people generally respond differently “when asked about the issue of same-sex marriage,” versus “allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally.” The former garners less support than the latter, the report said, lowering the average level of support by 2.9 percentage points.

Even so, the trend shows a clear majority of public support and change in overall Americans’ attitude, even after accounting for the different ways polls ask participants about their opinions. Support has more than doubled within an 18-year timeframe that Flores studied.

The report analyzed 138 polls, from 1996 to 2014, with 36 different question wordings from 21 polling organizations.

The majority of the public supports same-sex marriage in 2014, and other deviations are explained by meta-analysis question framing and organizational “house” effects, wrote Flores in the Public Opinion Quarterly.

“We explored this variation and found that the difference is in how you frame it,” the Williams Institute said. “Questions that focused on the issue of ‘same-sex marriage’ garnered less support than questions on the legal recognition of marriages for same-sex couples.”

(www.asianjournal.com)

(LA Weekend June 20 – 23, 2015 Sec A pg.6)