Gay Marriage & Issues Survey (Elliot)

Abstract

With the aim to obtain an overview about the opinion of Texas Tech Community in relation to gay marriage issues, a survey was conducted. 145 people were interviewed between students, faculty and workers of the campus. Several sources of information were consulted with the aim to construct a preview scenery about the feeling in relation to gay marriage. Four central topics were identified: Kim Davis’ refusal, baker’s rejections to serve, children’s adoption by gay couples and familiar stability of gay couples.  In relation to these central topics, five hypotheses were made which establish a relation between the information previously found and the hypotheses formulated.

The objective of the survey was to get the opinion of Texas Tech Community in order to probe the five hypotheses, but also it was of interest to understand the profile of people who were in one position or another in relation to these matters.

It was possible to prove that millennials were the group that more strongly supported gay marriage. This group also rejected the behavior of Kim Davis when she declined to serve a gay marriage. In this direction, people who supported gay marriage consequently rejected Ms. Davis’ behavior. In this study also a classification by gender was made. The purpose in this type of study was to recognize differences between males and females in issues related with family, but more specifically related to children’s adoption. Suddenly results were found in this part of the study. The woman’s opinion was in opposite direction of the hypotheses formulated. Woman strongly supported children’s adoption and men’s position was mostly neutral.

Last, the right to refusal was studied. Six types of services were recognized and the survey sought to get the people’s opinions in relation to the right that servers could have to refuse each of these services. The results showed a direct relation between services related to religion and the right to reject to serve; particularly a very high support to reject serving was found for pastors and religious agencies of adoption. On the other hand, the right to refuse serving by basic services like access to doctors was strongly rejected.

A deeper and extended discussion of the data found is offered in this study. This part of the study made a contrast between the five hypotheses formulated and the results, and also quantitative records are registered. Finally, an objective analysis of this study was made. In this part of the study the limitations in the representation of the results was exposed. These limitations were based mainly on the small quantity of people interviewed, the poor care that was taken in order to get representative samples of students, faculty and workers from all sections and departments of the campus.

Introduction

Since the Supreme Court decision about same-sex marriage was made, the country has been divided. The main argument is discrimination: Same-sex couples on one side and conservative religious Americans on the other side (Green, 2015). The first emblematic case was the hard opposition imposed by Ms. Kim Davis, County Clerk in Kentucky. The contradictions between personal beliefs and professional duty put the country in an intense debate. In spite of the final Court’s decision in this case, today Ms. Davis is considered by many as a Christian hero (Fox News, 2015).

There are other troubles in the professional scene. The case of the Colorado bakery shop owner became a trending topic due to his statements related to the government’s duty to protect people’s freedom (Hanna, 2015). On the other hand, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender people (LGBTs) do not want to feel discrimination when they require some service.

The adoption of children is an interesting theme that breaks up the public opinion. There exist strong arguments on one and another side. On one hand, in accordance to the opinion of some people, children were showed to be more stable and successful when they were brought up by heterosexual parents (Common argument against gay marriage, 2014). On the other hand, studies that are pro-gay adoption highlight the positive consequences that this scenario implies: a healthy environment for children, easier school registration and health decisions. For example, parents without legal standing are not allowed to participate in educative decisions (Almond, 2015).

There are several implications and new scenarios of discussion opened since the Supreme Court approved same-sex marriage. This decision has touched the life of America in several ways. It is for this reason that there is interest in studying the opinions at Texas Tech University. This University represents an important community characterized to have a diversified public. This large and contrasting group of people gives a source to obtain a reflection of other college campuses.

The main objective of the study is to learn the general opinion related to issues associated with same-sex marriage. Then, the study will try to reach a correlation between some important characteristics of people and the opinion related to the cases exposed in the media.

The main tool to drive the study will be a survey which will be conducted by graduate students. This survey does not pretend to obtain representative and statistically correct correlations of the opinion of the Texas Tech University community, nor of the city. The purpose is only to sense an approximate opinion about these important facts.

Literature review

Many things have been written since the approval of the law about same-sex marriage. One of the most emblematic and controversial examples of the practical consequences of this law is the case of County Clerk Kim Davis who, defying the Supreme Court´s decision, rejected five marriage licenses (Tashman, 2015). Ms. Davis argues with issues related to her faith: “Government has a duty to protect people's freedom to follow their beliefs rather than force them to adopt the government's views” (Hanna, 2015, para. 15). In spite of this, some people think that there is not a relation between her religious principles and her professional duty. Ms. Davis has certainly been facing a considerable number of critics and protests, especially from gay marriage advocates (Blinder & Fausset, 2015). But, several sectors of the society have taken this controversy in a serious way. This discussion offers the first hypothesis to this study, which is related with the level of severity that people consider in this debate.

On the other hand, the later process has had natural implications, like children’s adoption. In this way the discussion offers several practical directions. For example: decision authority in matters related to education (Pettus, 2015), regulations about legal authority of the parents on the kid (Lewin, 2015), and the recognition of both parents as legal: Today only one of the parents can be considered as legal, in Mississippi anyway (Lewin, 2015). Moreover, it is necessary to add the discussion about whether it is advisable or not to deliver children to this type of couple. States argue that the environment provided by biological parents (male-female) is ideal for the growth of a child in comparison with the environment given by two male or two female partners (Common arguments against gay marriages, 2015). The refusal of the Alabamas Supreme Court to recognize children’s adoption into gay families is another important antecedent to the discussion (Harper, 2015). This complex theme allows us to suspect that the public opinion is not clearly in favor of the children’s adoption.

The opposition of bakers to serving a gay couple was another case widely highlighted. For several days people discussed the right of a professional or authorities to refuse to serve. Although the Colorado Court of Appeals did not accept the baker’s argument that cake-baking is a form of art and free speech, and forced the bakers to comply with the State’s public-accommodations law (Green, 2015), the discussion about the rights of one or another part is still alive. The relation between rights of people and the feeling of discrimination is not solved. This dichotomy offers space to another relevant hypothesis: People feel that they have the right to refuse to serve gays and that does not represent a discriminatory act.

Finally, several surveys reflect, in a disaggregated way, a general view about what type of people is in favor or against themes related with same-sex couples. For example, a survey of Pew indicated that Millennials had the highest acceptance toward LGBT among any other generations (Bagnall, 2015); the highest support was shown by people in the age-group of 18-29 (77%) and the lowest support was observed among people in the age-group 65 + (51%). Americans support same-sex marriages (53%) (Swift, 2015). Several of these data help us figure out two hypotheses: There is a direct relation between youthfulness and the degree of receptivity to the children’s adoption by LGBT. It was also feasible to suspect that women could be the group that have more apprehension present to any matter related to the children’s adoption by LGBT.

Hypotheses

1.   People who support Ms. Davis’s behavior are not necessarily in opposition to same-sex marriage.

2.   In spite of approval of the same-sex marriage, people show apprehension about allowing children’s adoption. The approval of gay adoption will be lower that of gay marriage. We suspect that we will find some issues with adoption that approval of gay marriage does not show.

3.   There is a direct relation between youthfulness and the degree of approval of the children’s adoption by LGBT. It is more likely to see young people approving children’s adoption than old people.

4.   Woman present more apprehension than men to any matter related to the children’s adoption by LGBT.

5.   In questions related to free speech, people feel that there is a right to refuse to serve gays and this does not represent a discriminatory act.

Methodology

We were interested to know the opinion of Texas Tech’s community about issues related to same-sex marriage. We also wanted to know the reaction of these people about other associated themes which have taken relevance because the approval of same sex marriage; for example, children's adoption and the right to refuse to serve gay couples. In these terms, we have elaborated five hypotheses which are related with several of these reactions. One of them refers to Ms. Davis’s case. The other three hypotheses mention the relation between gay couples and children’s adoption, while the last one seeks to understand which behaviors can be recognized as discriminatory acts against gay people.

 We prepared a survey to catch the information which consists of seventeen brief questions. The process to fill the surveys was conducted through direct asking to the respondent by a pollster. Each respondent filled the survey without intervention of the researcher. Most of questions were formatted as exclusive selection. Furthermore, we use a Likert scale in two questions, two multiple choice questions, one ranking question and two open questions. We chose this format of questions because the process for filling it out is easier and prevents errors. On the other hand, the analysis of results is faster and clearer than with open questions. We were interested to catch the opinion of Texas Tech Community. For this reason we asked preferentially people inside the campus. In case of interviews of people outside the campus, we put attention to confirming that these people have direct relation with the University, whether as workers or as students.

The first group of questions sought to describe the respondent in term of sex, age, precedence, political position and religious tendencies. Then we asked them about opinions in relation to the Supreme Court’s decision and associated discussion on children’s adoption and the quality of life of gay couples. Finally, we asked three questions related to news and facts linked with some the consequences that were seen after the approval of the law. We received one hundred forty five surveys, which were registered in a table in accordance with the order of the survey. We used Microsoft Excel to recompile and analyze the data. We used the information to make graphs and study tables. We made cross studies of the data with the aim of validating our hypotheses. Finally, we summarized the more relevant information and we did result and discussion sections. Some data are presented in the appendix with the aim of serving or supporting the conclusion and discussion process.

Results

In this section we present the results obtained in the survey. We developed five hypotheses and we collected the data to make the graphs required to support the outcomes found.

In the first hypothesis we tried to probe whether there was no relation between people who supported Ms. Davis’s behavior and people who were in opposition to the same-sex marriage. The results show that we were wrong, because there is an evident relation between these two variables: People who supported Ms. Davis’ refusal were consequently in strong opposition to same sex-marriage. On the other hand, people who strongly agreed with same-sex marriage did not support Ms. Davis’ behavior. We can see that 64 people supported legalizing gay marriage and none of these people supported Kim Davis’ refusal. Around six and eight people appeared to be impartial about those two topics. Finally, we found eleven persons who support Kim Davis’ refusal and are in strong disagreement with legalizing gay marriage. Only two of the people who strongly disagree with gay marriage do not support Kim Davis’ refusal.

Our second hypothesis sought to establish a relation between the approval of the same-sex marriage and the children’s adoption. Particularly, we predicted that people would show apprehension about allowing children’s adoption in spite of their approval of same-sex marriage. We also suspected that the approval of gay adoption would be lower than that of gay marriage. We were wrong in the first prediction, because there is a direct and very strong relation between agreeing with legalizing gay marriage and agreeing about children’s adoption. On the other hand, the survey showed that the second prediction was far from the reality: There was not more opposition to children’s adoption than to legalizing gay marriage. We found that the quantity of people who strongly agreed with children’s adoption was higher than people who approved legalizing gay marriage.

Around seventy-three people approved legalizing marriage, while seventy-seven supported children’s adoption. We found twenty-one people in strong disagreement with legalizing marriage, but only twelve of those people were in disagreement with children’s adoption.

Our third hypothesis indicated that there was a direct relation between youthfulness and the degree of approval of the children’s adoption by LGBT. It is more likely that we would see young people approving children’s adoption than old people.

This part of the study did not show a complete perspective about the relation between different age groups and their answers, because the largest percentage of the respondents were young people. In any case, we found an interesting group of mature people who do not support children’s adoption, while the people who strong agreed with children’s adoption were mostly young people. All age groups showed an increment in the strongly support option to children adoption. People with ages between twenty and thirty-nine years were most supportive of children’s adoption. This group represented fifty eight people.

Our fourth hypothesis sought to establish a relation between any matters related to the children’s adoption by LGBT and the gender of people. The hypothesis indicated that woman would present more apprehension than men in those matters. We were also wrong in this point. We found that woman were more in agreement to children’s adoption than men. Men were only superior in the “neutral” scale of this question.

We found that forty-five women strongly agreed with children’s adoption, while only thirty-two men supported this scenario.   This behavior was repeated with the answer of agreement in which women overcame men. We found the same number of women and men strongly disagreed with children’s adoption.

Our last hypothesis regarded issues related to free speech. We postulated that people would feel that there is a right to refuse to serve gays and this does not represent a discriminatory act. In this question we found that there was a feeling that people could be right when they refused to serve. The only one exception was related with medical services. The main scenario where people feel that there is a right to refuse is related to religion. On the other hand, the quantity of people who feel that there is not a right to   refuse to serve was near to a third of those interviewed.

Most of those interviewed answered that pastors have the right to refuse to serve. They represent ninety   answers, while we found that only three people feel that doctors have a right to refuse. We also found sixty-three people who said that religious adoption agencies have the right to refuse gay families.

Discussion

In this section we present the discussion of the results in relation to the five hypotheses formulated.

The first hypothesis of this study supposed that there was a relation between people who supported Ms. Davis’s behavior and people who were in opposition to same-sex marriage. This guess was based on differences between the importance and the social impact that each situation had. The evidence found showed a completely different scenario. The much close relation between the supports of these two situations proved that, in spite of the fact that these two situations are different, people could recognize clearly that support of Ms. Davis meant rejection of same-sex marriage.  This can be seen as a consequent behavior which establishes a relation between the opinions of same-sex marriage and its effects. The relation was also found in the inverse sense: People who supported same-sex marriage were in clear opposition to Ms. Davis’ behavior. Moreover, it was possible to recognize equilibrium in the age distribution of people who were in one or another position. For example, the quantity of millennials who supported same-sex marriage was the same as millennials who rejected Ms. Davis’ position.

The second hypothesis of this study was based on the positive and direct relation supposed between approval of same-sex marriage and children’s adoption. It was supposed that the people’s position on children’s adoption matters could be more conservative than the position over issues related to same-sex marriage. There was found a direct relation between these two questions: people who supported same-sex marriage also supported children’s adoption. This behavior could be explained by the sense of stability that people could attribute to same-sex couples. This feeling was proved in another question of this survey that sought to compare their perceptions of the stability between same-sex couples and heterosexual couples. The results found showed no difference in these two types of couples in term of stability. On the other hand, people interviewed showed a receptive position to the possible effects of adoption by same-sex couple on children. They also did not indicate that they thought that children could be gay as a consequence of being adopted by same-sex couples.

The third hypothesis of the study sought to establish a relation between the age of people and the degree of approval of children’s adoption by LGBT. It was found a strong and clear relation between these two variables. It was found that people who supported same-sex marriage were mostly young people. The distribution was mildly different for people who did not support same-sex marriage: the quantity of mature and old people in this position was clearly superior. This behavior can be explained by the apprehension that old people could have to making several changes to the society. In this part of the study, special mention can be made of the age distribution of people involved in the survey. Respondents of the survey were mostly young people, mainly students whose age was between 18 and 39 years old. This fact can be an important debilitating argument to any hypothesis related with age groups.

The fourth hypothesis of this study sought to differentiate the position of females in relation to males. Particularly, it was suggested that females could show a higher grade of apprehension to children’s adoption. The survey showed results in the opposite direction: Most women showed strong agreement with children’s adoption by gay couples and few women declared opposition to children’s adoption. These results suggested that women proved more receptiveness to the children’s adoption, considerably overcoming the men’s position. Men also agreed with children’s adoption, but only half of men asked showed strong agreement with children’s adoption. The gender distribution of the survey was properly balanced: the quantities of women and men who responded to the survey were roughly the same; therefore, it was possible to obtain an assertive scenario to analyze this question. On the other hand, the indifferent response of males in this question had a considerable quantity; roughly a quarter of the men interviewed declared to be in a neutral position. It was possible to see a similar difference between males and females in the question related to the probability that raising children in gay families could also be gay. Most women and men responded that raising children in gay families does not imply that they will be gay. Women outnumbered men in this opinion and men showed a little bit more tendency to believe that the probability of gay children could be increased.

The fifth and last hypothesis is related to the sense of discrimination that people could feel in issues of daily life.  The results found showed that people considered that some type of servers have the right to refuse gay couples. This behavior was especially strong in institutions linked with religious beliefs. In this way, people felt strong agreement about refusing to serve from pastors and religious adoption agencies. In both of these areas people understood that whether gay couples and religious people have rights, that must be respected. This is the more controversial situation that confronts gay couples and the society. On the other hand, respondents widely rejected the idea that professional servers and artists could refuse to serve gays. The answers found put into evidence that the refusal from this type of people could be a discriminatory act against gays. Finally, there was an agreement about not supporting discriminatory behavior from doctors or emergency responders. It can be possible that this particular result could be related to the people’s feeling that this type of professionals has the duty to serve any people.

Limitations

This study has several limitations in relation to the representability of the results. The quantity of respondents interviewed does not have relation with the entire population on campus. On the other hand, a homogeneous and representative sample of respondents was not made, so it was impossible to obtain results that could represent the position of academic departments, administrative units or different types of people like students, faculty members or workers. A deeper gender behavior was not made either. A discretized study by gender could be more explanatory about the differences between females and males in relation to important issues like children’s adoption. In spite of the fact that a comparison between male and female was part of a hypothesis, there were no more results that could cover the position of females in adoption issues or other topics related to their opinion in matters linked to family and children’s and gay couples’ quality of life.

The distribution of age of people had a very important factor of weakness. Many important conclusions and results could be made if the age distribution was more homogenous. On the other hand, a selective selection of people by academic program was not made either. This could help us to recognize some differences and changes of opinion related to the study level of the respondents.

Conclusions

In this study five hypotheses were proved. In general, the real situation that was found by the survey showed that the hypotheses were mainly in opposite directions, especially in terms of the family issues. The first hypothesis displayed that there is a logical relation between facts that in a first view can appear unrelated. In this way, is this study a direct relation between Ms. Davis’s behavior and support of same-sex marriage was found. The second hypothesis had the aim to show a difference between the support of same-sex marriage and the children’s adoptions. The results were partially consequent with the hypothesis in terms of the direct relation, but suddenly, the results showed a stronger support for children’s adoption than gay marriage. The survey did not allow us to get reasonable evidence to support this fact. However, questions related to families of same-sex couples put on evidence that people could understand that this type of couples may be as stable as or more stable than heterogeneous couples. With this fact in evidence it is possible to understand some confidence in the capability of same-sex couples to have a stable relation in marriage.

The third hypothesis was supported as was predicted. There is a direct relation between age of people and the degree of approval of children’s adoption by LGBT. The same behavior for same-sex marriage was seen. Young people are more open to supporting radical changes of the society like children’s adoption or same-sex marriage. These results must be evaluated carefully because the representability of the data is not optimal. In the fourth hypothesis a gender classification was necessary. In this evaluation the representability was better than the previous case, because the quantity of women interviewed was roughly the same as that of men interviewed. This information was used mainly to study the behavior of people in relation to children’s adoption. Suddenly, the woman’s position was less conservative than the hypothesis mentioned.  The fifth hypothesis sought to establish an overview of what type of service professionals have the right to refuse. This part of the study sought to recognize if there were actions that could be considered discriminatory, or whether they were within the rights of people. The results of the survey showed that people felt that people linked with religious institutions have the right to refuse to serve.

This study had limitations, especially related to the limited thoroughness of the procedure. For example, the quantity of people interviewed did not represent the Texas Tech Community. The construction of the survey was not evaluated. The procedure to ask for each interviewer was designed without put attention to the representability of the sample. For this reason, the legitimacy of the answers and the lack of influence of the interviewer is not guaranteed.

Bibliography

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Tashman, B. (2015, September 1). Kentucky clerk denies marriage license to gay couple for 5th time, cites 'God's authority'. Right Wing Watch. Retrieved September 1, 2015, from http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/kentucky-clerk-denies-marriage-license-gay-couple-5th-time-cites-gods-authority

Appendix

Survey

Charts