New Rutgers-Eagleton poll: NJ SUPPORTS MARRIAGE FOR GAY COUPLES

[Before we get to the news below, only a handful of tickets remain to this Monday night's Garden State Equality gala SUMMERTIME! in Asbury Park -- a magical evening featuring live jazz, 34 different wines, table after table of stunning Mediterranean-inspired cuisine, and Ted Allen, the wine and food expert from television's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," as your epicurean guide. To order tickets online, visit www.GardenStateEquality.org]

Friday, June 23, 2006 -- A new Rutgers-Eagleton Poll of New Jersey released today shows that New Jerseyans favor marriage for gay couples by 50 to 44 percent, up significantly from the last Rutgers-Eagleton Poll of September 2003, which had support for marriage for gay couples in New Jersey at 43 percent, with opposition at 50 percent. The Rutgers-Eagleton poll has been the most conservative statewide poll -- by far -- in evaluating support in New Jersey for marriage for gay couples.

Yet today's poll confirms that New Jersey is one of America's most strongly pro-marriage equality states. A February 2006 poll by Zogby International, commissioned by Garden State Equality, has support for marriage for gay couples at 56 percent, with opposition at 39 percent. The February 2006 Zogby-Garden State Equality Poll has opposition to a state constitutional ban on marriage for gay couples at 67 percent, with only 28 percent in favor.

"Today's poll is the death knell for the right-wing's political arguments against marriage equality in the State of New Jersey," said Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality. "For years, the right wing has attacked polls commissioned by Garden State Equality and other LGBTI organizations as being 'unreliable' and not reflecting the state's alleged 'true' position on marriage equality. What bunk. Poll after poll after poll in New Jersey, no matter who conducts them or who commissions them, all say the same thing: New Jersey wants gay couples to have the freedom to marry."

BY 56-39% NEW JERSEY FAVORS MARRIAGE FOR
GAY COUPLES, ACCORDING TO FEBRUARY 2006
ZOGBY-GARDEN STATE EQUALITY POLL;
IT’S THE STATE’S HIGHEST SUPPORT EVER

Democrats favor 67%, Independents favor 62%,
Catholics favor 60%, Jews favor 68%

BY 67-28%, NEW JERSEY VOTERS OPPOSE IDEA OF STATE CONSTITUTIONAL BAN ON MARRIAGE FOR GAY COUPLES, WANT LEGISLATURE TO ACCEPT WHAT COURTS RULE

BY 77-20%, NEW JERSEY VOTERS SAY LEGISLATURE HAS BETTER PRIORITIES THAN TO TRY TO BAN MARRIAGE FOR GAY COUPLES IN STATE CONSTITUTION

New Jersey favors marriage for lesbian and gay couples 56 to 39 percent, the state’s strongest support ever, according to a Garden State Equality-Zogby poll of 802 New Jersey voters surveyed from February 8-10, 2006.
The poll’s margin of error is +/- 3.5 percent.

Garden State Equality commissioned the poll, but Zogby International, one of the country’s most respected pollsters, independently conducted the poll and independently compiled the poll data.

According to the poll, 67 percent of Democrats favor marriage equality; 62 percent of Independents; 60 percent of Catholics; and 68 percent of Jews.

New Jersey’s 56 to 39 percent support for marriage equality evokes where the state stood in Zogby polls taken in July 2003 and April 2005, underscoring the credibility of this most recent poll. The April 2005 Zogby poll of New Jersey had support for marriage equality at 55 to 40 percent. The July 2003 Zogby poll of New Jersey had support for marriage equality in New Jersey at 55 to 41 percent.

According to the new poll, by 67 to 28 percent New Jersey voters oppose the idea of the legislature’s putting on the ballot a measure to ban gay marriage. By 77 to 20 percent, New Jersey voters say the legislature has more important priorities than to spend time trying to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to ban gay marriage. And 60 percent of New Jerseyans say they hold that view strongly.

In the context of practical politics, those are the poll’s most important results. If the New Jersey Supreme Court rules that gay couples have the constitutional right to marry, anti-gay legislators could move to change the state constitution. A bill to amend the state constitution must pass each house in two consecutive legislative sessions – or pass each house by 60 percent in one session – before going to the voters as a ballot measure. Given the massive public opposition to such a move, a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage would face long odds.

“If marriage equality prevails at the state Supreme Court and national anti-gay activists think of coming here,” said Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality, “they will meet their Waterloo. New Jersey marches to a different drummer and the beat of equality. New Jersey is the state that doesn’t hate.”

Garden State Equality has waged one of the most aggressive campaigns in America to buttress support for the issue. Garden State Equality's nationally renowned town meeting series for marriage equality, "New Jersey: A State That Doesn't Hate," has drawn nearly 10,000 New Jerseyans to 24 town meetings across New Jersey since January 2003, and helped to generate the public momentum for passage of the state's domestic partnership law in 2004. The series has become a model for grassroots campaigns nationwide.

Garden State Equality's other achievements include:

-- The 2006 expansion of the state's domestic partnership law, for which Garden State Equality worked aggressively, by the largest margins of victory of any LGBTI rights measure in American history. The state Senate passed the measure 39 to 0, and the state Assembly passed the measure 67 to 6.

-- Garden State Equality's grassroots mobilization and triumphs for the late Lieutenant Laurel Hester and her partner Stacie Andree, transgender teacher Lily McBeth, and several other LGBTI New Jerseyans who have faced heinous discrimination.

-- Domestic partnership benefits offered by 10 counties across the state to their employees, and counting, in light of the victory for the late Lieutenant Hester.

-- The most ambitious LGBTI get-out-the-vote operation in New Jersey history in 2005, when Garden State Equality volunteers staffed 20 campaign field offices in every part of the state.

-- Victories for 90 percent of the candidates endorsed by Garden State Equality in both primaries and general elections.

-- The first LGBTI television commercial in New Jersey history. Garden State Equality's commercial for transgender equality, which aired on News 12 New Jersey in 2005, was also the first television advertising in American history on the discrimination endured by the transgender community. According to an April 2005 Zogby-Garden State Equality poll, 70 percent of New Jerseyans favor legislation to codify a judicial ban on transgender discrimination, with only 19 percent opposed.

-- Pushing LGBTI-rights activism in New Jersey toward a full partnership between the LGBTI community and the straight community. A significant number of Garden State Equality's Board, general membership, donors and grassroots volunteers are from New Jersey's straight community. Public officials who don't listen to the 10 to 15 percent of New Jerseyans who are LGBTI will surely listen to the 80 percent of New Jerseyans who, according to the April 2005 Zogby-Garden State Equality poll, personally know someone LGBTI.

The Garden State Equality family of organizations includes Garden State Equality LLC, a continuing political committee under New Jersey law, and the Garden State Equality Educational Fund, a 501c3 organization that receives foundation grants for 501c3 educational activities. Each organization is colloquially known as Garden State Equality.