The 2010 Texas Lyceum poll was released Tuesday, and for the second straight year, more than half of respondents said they support some form of legal relationship status for same-sex couples — whether it be civil unions or marriage.
According to the poll of 725 adult Texans from Sept. 22-30, 24 percent support civil unions, 28 percent support same-sex marriage, and 40 percent oppose both civil unions and gay marriage. That means a total of 52 percent support some form of relationship recognition, with 8 percent apparently not responding to the question.
This support for relationship recognition is actually down from the 2009 Lyceum poll, when 57 percent said they supported either marriage or civil unions, and only 36 percent opposed both.
But it marks the fourth consecutive statewide poll to show that a majority of Texans support either civil unions or marriage.
As Texas Politics Project Director Jim Henson put it in February: “This seems to be rapidly becoming not a question of what’s in public opinion. What’s in public opinion is becoming kind of a settled issue. Now the question is one of leadership and politics.”
