Matt Dewey

Using ESS, it is argued in this paper that the recent state Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage in Iowa did in fact align with the feelings of the majority of the population.  The paper will discuss whether if those who oppose gay marriage or those who support gay marriage will be the dominant group in a particular state, while using the percentage of the statewide population that is Evangelical, black, believes in God with absolute certainty, and has a high school diploma as the predictor variables.

Baker v. Nelson – 1971 – Minnesota Baehr v. Miike – 1991 – Hawaii DOMA – 1996 – Clinton 1998 – Anti-same-sex marriage amendment in

Hawaii 2001 – Vermont Legalizes Civil Unions May 17, 2004 – Gay marriage legalized in MA October 10, 2008 – Legalized in CT April 27, 2009 – Legalized in Iowa September 1, 2009 – Will be legalized in

Vermont

Laws Regarding Same-Sex Partnerships in the United States██ Same-sex marriages██ Unions granting rights similar to marriage██ Unions granting limited/enumerated rights██ Foreign same-sex marriages recognized██ No specific prohibition or recognition of same-sex marriages or unions██ Statute bans same-sex marriage██ Constitution bans same-sex marriage██ Constitution bans same-sex marriage and other kinds of same-sex unions

Four predictor variables used to determine the percentage of a state population that supports gay marriage were 1) % black 2) % evangelical 3) % believes in God 4) % with high school diploma

hsdiploma 23 81.73478 4.383917 74.1 87.7 yesgod 23 73.91304 9.054949 54 86 evangelical 23 27.47826 12.70959 7 53 black 23 11.07826 9.970044 .8 31.9 Variable Obs Mean Std. Dev. Min Max

“Black voters consistently polled much lower than white voters on approval for same-sex marriage, about 16 percentage points.” (McKinley)

64% of evangelicals think homosexuality should be strongly discouraged by society. (US Religion Landscape Survey)

hsdiploma 0.3842 -0.6942 -0.6954 -0.4910 1.0000 yesgod -0.7079 0.4937 0.7370 1.0000 evangelical -0.4975 0.5317 1.0000 black -0.2790 1.0000 gaymarriage 1.0000 gaymar~e black evange~l yesgod hsdipl~a

p = .5 – [2.38(%evangelical + %yesgod) + 3.12(%black)]

1 – [2.38(%evangelical + %yesgod) + 3.12(%black) + 2.75(%hsdiploma]

Results:

Iowa = 49%

Massachusetts= 43%

Connecticut = 44%

Vermont = 36%

California > 50% (52.2%)

South Dakota = 52% (52.1%)

South Carolina = 68% (78%)

Wisconsin = 51% (59%)

1 / (1 + e^-(-976.458 + 24.79953(hsdiploma) + 2.915962(evangelical) – 16.82536(yesgod) – 12.89894(black)))

The ESS model shows that higher education rates lead to a decrease in the proportion of state citizens that will oppose gay marriage.

The model also shows that the higher the percentage of blacks, evangelicals, and believers in God in the population, the higher the proportion of state citizens that will oppose gay marriage.

Only accounted for four variables. Omitted Variable Bias in the Logistic

Regression. Imperfect Data: Only used data on 23 states

According to the ESS model, Iowa’s Supreme Court was in fact correctly representing the majority of the State by legalizing gay marriage.