More members of the Church of England now support same-sex marriage than oppose it, new polling suggests.
The finding, from a YouGov survey of more than 6,000 people, suggests the Church’s leadership, which led a high-profile campaign against a change in the law, is at odds with the majority of Anglicans in England for the first time.
It also points to a sharp fall in opposition to same-sex marriage among those who identify as members of the Church of England since the law changed, echoing a shift in wider society.
Read it all from the Telegraph.
Before you believe any of the Telegraph article or any claim from the poll it references- read this
http://anglicanmainstream.org/the-yougov-poll-on-same-sex-marriage/
All the poll actually demonstrates is that a large number of people who have not darkened the door of a church or put a dime (or shilling) in the plate since their childhood claim to be members of the Church of England.
I agree – as a rule, affiliates – ie those who say they belong but don’t attend – show the same behaviour and attitudes as the general population.
Attenders show different behaviour and attitudes.
I would like to see a survey of attenders.
I can’t copy it into here, but the actual results are here:
http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/pwwbcqwbmx/JayneOzanne_Results_SameSexMarriage_160121_GB_Website.pdf
It looks like there was no attempt to ask about actual religious behaviour, so there is no way to split out the attenders from the affiliates. A couple of points:
1. There were not 6000 odd Anglicans in the survey – the number was 986.
2. Even with all the affiliates, the “more support” same sex marriage was not a dramatic “more”. The actual numbers were 42% saying it was right 39% saying it was wrong, and 19% saying don’t know. I would have thought the 3% was well within the margin of error.
Finally, I think the “don’t knows” are really interesting. I would have said that it looks like people who really opposed same-sex marriage but thought it was too politically incorrect to say so went for the “don’t know” option. Just a supposition, but if I were campaigning for same-sex marriage I wouldn’t be assuming they were indifferent.