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New Poll Finds 54% Of Michiganders Would Reverse Same-sex Marriage Ban & Support Anti-discrimination Protections Measure

LANSING, MI -- A poll of registered voters in Michigan by the Glengariff Group shows increased support for ten key legal rights as they pertain to LGBT people in Michigan. The proposed amendment to Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act that would prohibit employment discrimination against LGBT people has support across the board, with an average of 75.5% supporting, including 56% of strong Republican voters.

Support for civil marriage equality increased 12.5% from last year to 56.8%, including 54% support for the reversal of Michigan's 2004 constitutional marriage equality ban and legalizing same-gender relationship recognition.

In an e-mail Tuesday, Emily Dievendorf Managing Director of Equality Michigan told LGBTQ Nation;

"This poll confirms Equality Michigan's assertion that fundamental fairness is not a partisan issue and Michigan voters are ready for real change in the treatment of LGBT people in Michigan. 

As more and more people become aware of the LGBT people in their lives and the evidence continues to mount that LGBT equality is good for Michigan's economy, people are becoming bolder in their stance that the second-class treatment of LGBT people has been tolerated in Michigan for far too long."

"There's been a huge sea change in the last five years," said Glengariff founder and CEO Richard Czuba. "I've never seen a policy issue move quite this much, quite this quickly."

Czuba attributed the rapid shift to the fact that 83 percent of respondents said they knew a gay individual, "and history has shown that more people support issues if they know someone personally impacted."

Support increased most among voters who identified themselves as independents or said they lean Republican. The numbers didn't change as much for other Republicans, but the results did indicate a divide between young GOP voters and those 40 years of age or older. Geographically, Republicans in Southeast Michigan were more likely to support same-sex marriage than those in other parts of the state.

"That conflict is a huge challenge for the Republican Party," Czuba said.

The survey was paid for by the Glengariff Group and was conducted over May 8-10, 2013, it has a margin of error of +/-4.0% with 95% level of confidence according to the company..