A survey claiming majority U.S. Catholic support for same-sex
“marriage” shows some differences with the “gold standard” of social
surveys and did not report important information like the margin of
error.
A March 23, 2011 report from the Washington, D.C.-based Public
Religion Research Institute included claims that Catholic support for
same-sex “marriage” stood at 53 percent.
Mark M. Gray, Ph.D., director of CARA Catholic Polls and a research
associate for the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at
Georgetown University, said the claim of majority support cannot be made
“with any certainty, given the relatively small sample size here and
the margin of error.”
The survey had interviewed about 3,000 people, including about 600
Catholics, Gray said. The margin of error for the Catholic population
was plus or minus six percentage points.
“Any percentage here, for all Catholics, could be six points higher,
it could be six points lower,” he explained.
He criticized the
institute’s report for not including either the margins of error or the
numbers of Latino Catholics, which he said was “standard practice.”
Gray told CNA the figure for same-sex “marriage” support was “a
little bit above” that reported in the 2010 General Social Survey, the
“gold standard” of sociological research conducted every two years. In
that survey, 20 percent of Catholics strongly agreed and 28 percent
agreed “that homosexual couples should have the right to marry one
another.”
The high figure from the Public Religion Research Institute also
resulted from “kind of forcing people between two options,” civil
marriage for same-sex couples or no recognition whatsoever, he said.
In Gray’s view, a three-option survey adding the choice of civil
unions “gets at a greater level of detail” and probably provides “a more
accurate estimation, because people have more choices to consider.”
The same report also contained results from a three-option poll.
Forty-three percent of Catholics favor “allowing gay and lesbian people
to marry” and 31 percent support “allowing them to form civil unions.”
About 22 percent say there should be no legal recognition for a
homosexual couple’s relationship. Latino Catholics were more likely than
white Catholics to oppose any civil recognition, but they were also
more likely to support same-sex “marriage.”
The Public Religion Research Institute reported that “major funding”
for its survey came from the Arcus Foundation, founded by wealthy
homosexual activist Jon Stryker.
The institute has connections to homosexual activist foundations. In
2009 it accepted a $107,500 grant from the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr.
Fund “to survey California religious communities and help develop
religious education strategies supporting gay equality.”
The fund
provided additional support for the latest survey report, as did the
Ford Foundation.
At the same time, Gray said that some numbers in the report are “pretty consistent” with publicly available data.
“Over time there’s been a growing percentage of people who agree
specifically with the questions about civil unions and marriage,
something that we’ve seen in surveys. A lot of it we see in terms of
generational differences.”
However, in surveys providing three choices, same-sex “marriage”
support does not draw majority support from Catholics overall. Only
those unaffiliated with religion show majority support for same-sex
“marriage.”
Another facet the survey did not highlight was that breaking down the
figures by church attendance produced a remarkably different set of
results.
More frequent Massgoers were less likely to approve of same-sex
“marriage,” and 31 percent of Massgoers who attended weekly or more
frequently favor no legal recognition for same-sex couples.
However, 38
percent of the same group favor civil unions.
Even support for civil unions falls short of Catholic teaching.
In a 2003 document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote: “The Church teaches that
respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of
homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions. The
common good requires that laws recognize, promote and protect marriage
as the basis of the family, the primary unit of society.”
Both generational changes and less frequent attendance are “probably
important” in explaining the survey results, Gray said. “Which one
matters more is an interesting question.
Most of the change is among
younger people, both within Catholicism, Protestantism, and the general
population overall.”