No on 8 lead is eroding in poll

The California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in May, ruling that the state Constitution's promise of equal protection affords gays and lesbians the same right to marry as heterosexual couples. The ruling overturned Proposition 22, passed by voters in 2000, which defined marriage as only between a man and a woman. By amending the Constitution, Proposition 8 would remove the basis for the court's ruling.

Same-sex couples began marrying in June. Many religious leaders and other opponents of same-sex marriage have worked hard since then to pass Proposition 8.

Campaign contributions from out of state are flooding into California -- in part because the state is considered a bellwether, and what happens here could shape the future of gay marriage across the country. Only one other state, Massachusetts, allows same-sex marriage, although the high court in Connecticut recently ruled that gays should be allowed to marry there.

Baldassare, the president of the Public Policy Institute, said his poll also found that those in favor of the proposition tend to be more passionate than those on the other side.

Sonja Eddings Brown, spokeswoman for Yes on 8, dismissed the new poll results. "Every other poll that we have seen has shown us" winning, she said, including polling released by the No on 8 side a few weeks ago as part of a fundraising campaign that showed the proposition with a narrow lead.

Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin and a developer of Pollster.com, said different polls could produce different outcomes depending on "how you ask the question."

This could be particularly true of Proposition 8, he noted, because many voters have expressed confusion about what yes and no votes mean. A yes vote would ban same-sex marriage, while a no vote would preserve it.

Steve Smith, the campaign manager for the effort to defeat the measure, had another explanation for diverging poll results: People keep changing their minds.

Although many voters on both sides know exactly how they are going to cast their ballots, a chunk of voters in the middle are not just undecided but "conflicted," he believes, on the question of whether to ban gay marriage. People are "moving back and forth on this," he said. "It's a very volatile electorate."

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jessica.garrison@latimes.com

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Times researcher Maloy Moore contributed to this report.

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