Cell Phone Users More Likely To Support Gay Marriage

[movieguy]

Cell Phone Users More Likely To Support Gay Marriage

by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

May 16, 2006 - 9:00 pm ET

(Washington) A growing number of people are giving up their landline phone service to use cell phones exclusively, and those who are have some marked differences from those still using conventional phone service a new poll shows.

For one thing, they are more likely to support same-sex marriage and vote Democrat, according to the AP-AOL-Pew study. The study, the Associated Press reports, is one of the most extensive news surveys of cell phone users yet.

The poll found that 51 percent of the cell-phone-only group believes gay marriage should be allowed, while 37 percent of a standard polling sample felt that way.

And 53 percent of the cell phone only sample said they would vote for the Democratic Party's candidate, while 47 percent of a standard sample said they would vote Democratic, the poll found.

The results are less a change in attitude by Americans in general than who is embracing the new technology.

Currently, 7.8 percent of adults live in households that have only a cell phone. The group is growing at about 1 percentage point every six months.

When cell only users are blended into polls in general their low numbers do not alter traditional polling results.

Blending the opinions of cell-only respondents into a poll of all adults changed the findings on various political questions in the AP-AOL-Pew survey by 1 percentage point at the most.

"Today we're doing pretty well in dealing with the cell phone issue," said Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. "The problem is that the number is growing and at a pretty substantial clip."

The AP-AOL-Pew poll of 1,503 adults included 1,286 cell phone users and was conducted March 8-28. Half the interviews, 752, were conducted by landlines and 751 by dialing cell phones -- including 200 adults who had only cell phones.

©365Gay.com 2006

with files from The Associated Press

links