Majority support -- if barely -- came from the two political groups whose backing generally spells success in California: The state's largest party, Democrats, backed it by a 55%-39% margin, and the fastest-growing political group, independents, supported it 51% to 40%.
Yet support for the ruling did not necessarily lead to opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment, and vice versa. Democrats and independents narrowly backed the amendment despite their support for the court action. Democratic men favored the ruling but were split on the amendment. Democratic women, meanwhile, approved of both the court decision and the amendment.
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Effect on the election?
The interaction between the amendment and the presidential election is difficult to divine six months from election day. Among the reasons is that the court put itself at odds with the candidates -- neither Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Obama of Illinois, nor Republican McCain, a senator from Arizona, has backed gay marriage. All have sided instead with civil unions that would ensure benefits for same-sex partners.
For the candidates, the confluence of the gay marriage issue and the presidential election represents risk. For the Democratic nominee, the party's traditional allegiance with the gay community could lead to pressure on the candidate to embrace gay marriage -- perhaps alienating more moderate voters here and elsewhere.
McCain, meanwhile, will be pinched between the party's religious base, which is strongly in favor of the amendment, and the independent voters who generally recoil from social issue battles but whom McCain needs in order to win.
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Some leeway
The poll suggested that the candidates may have a little leeway: Only 1 in 4 registered voters said they would vote only for a candidate who agreed with their own position on marriage. Almost 6 in 10 said they could vote for a candidate with whom they disagreed -- suggesting that the issue was far from the top of most voters' agendas.
Responding to a separate question, only 10% of registered voters said that gay marriage was the most important issue facing the state, although more than 5 in 10 voters characterized it as important, just not the most important. Another third of voters said it was not important at all.
Among those who felt it was the most important, more than 6 in 10 were conservatives or those who consider themselves part of the Republican religious base. They were overwhelmingly voting for McCain, the poll found.
