Polls slightly favor legalization of same-sex marriage

Taipei, Nov. 28 (CNA) In a survey of nearly 1,100 respondents, 46.3 percent said they support same-sex marriage legalization, while 45.4 percent expressed opposition, according to the results of the survey released on Monday by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation.

You Ying-lung (游盈隆), chairman of the non-government, non-profit organization, said society at large has "zero consensus" on the issue and there is a serious divide, since those for and those against are almost the same.

Separated by age, among those under 40 years old, 64 percent support same-sex marriage legalization, while more than 50 percent are opposed among those over 40, according to the survey.

Among women, 49.6 percent support same-sex marriage and 41.9 percent said no, while 42.8 percent men support it and 52.1 percent do not.

The poll was conducted by Focus Survey Research by landline telephone Nov. 21-22 among randomly selected adults throughout the country over the age of 20. It obtained 1,098 valid samples and had a margin of error of 2.96 percentage points.

In response to a similar question of whether the respondents agree with revising the law to let same-sex people marry, 51.7 percent said yes and 43.3 percent said no, according to another poll released by the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) that same day.

As for the means to legalize same-sex marriage, 53.3 percent of the respondents said they support passage of a specific act, while 32.2 percent said they support a revision of the Civil Code, according to the KMT-commissioned survey.

Asked if passing a specific act on same-sex marriage would mean another way of discriminating against homosexual people, 25.5 percent said yes and 64.1 percent said no, according to the survey.

Asked if they agree that marriage between a man and woman can produce children, meaning that it results in public good for the nation, while same-sex marriage does not, 52.2 percent agreed and 40.1 percent disagreed.

However, only 46.1 percent of the respondents said they could accept someone in their family being a homosexual, while 48.7 percent said they could not, according to the poll.

The KMT poll was conducted by Survey and Research Co., Ltd. Nov. 22-23 among randomly selected adults over the age of 20 across the nation. It obtained 1,070 valid samples and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

(By Lu Hsin-hui, Hsieh Chia-chen and Kuo Chung-han)ENDITEM/J