The American voters have spoken, and a majority think DOMA, the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act that bans legally-married same-sex couples from receiving federal benefits, should be dead. Further, a majority of voters do not want the GOP to defend the law in court, and are in agreement with the president’s decision to not defend DOMA. In a new poll, 51% of voters oppose DOMA, the 1996 bill, while 34% — only one-third of the American people — support the 1996 bill.
Once again, as they did last fall, voters have clearly said that marriage is literally the last issue on their minds. And only 32% of Americans want Congress to defend DOMA, even less than those who support it. A majority oppose Republican efforts to defend DOMA — a whopping 22 point difference.
Last August, two nationwide polls, a CNN poll and an AP/Roper poll showed that a majority of Americans support marriage equality.
The poll, released today by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) supports a similar finding as a CNN poll last year and says “a majority support providing the same benefits to gay and lesbian couples who are legally married,” as opposite-sex couples currently receive.
A large majority, 64% of American, believe that same-sex spouses should be protected from losing their homes in cases of medical emergency or death of their spouse, and 60% believe same-sex spouses should be entitled to their spouse’s social security benefits.
The report also finds trouble for the GOP:
“A plurality of voters already disapprove of the way the Republicans in Congress are handling their job in charge of the House of Representatives: 42 percent approve, 45 percent disapprove. These results do not improve among independent voters (41 percent approve, 44 percent disapprove), non-college voters (37 percent, 46 percent) or seniors (39 percent, 41 percent), voters largely responsible for their majority. Given the results above, it should not be entirely surprising to see that voters are critical of the new majority on “focusing on issues important to the American people.†The issue now most important to the American people is jobs, where voters give a blistering 80 percent negative, 47 percent “poor†job performance rating to the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.”