Kentuckians may be changing their minds—very slowly—when it comes to same sex marriage, a new poll suggests.
A Bluegrass Poll released Monday shows 53 percent of voters disagree with a Supreme Court ruling in June legalizing gay marriage throughout the U.S.
That’s compared to 57 percent of Kentucky voters who earlier this year said they opposed same-sex marriage.
Fairness Campaign director Chris Hartman said public opinion in Southern states has been slow to change on same-sex marriage.
“I am not surprised that attitudes aren’t changing immediately,” he said. “But I think that we are going to see that.”
Hartman said he blames recent religious discrimination lawsuits and other developments for continued social division over marriage. But he said he expects support for same-sex marriage will continue to grow over time, because that’s been the trend so far.
“We have known that the marriage numbers have been lagging a bit,” Hartman said. “But overall the trend is undeniably toward approval of same-gender marriage.”
Kentucky was one of four states involved in the case before the Supreme Court this summer that legalized gay marriage.
The Bluegrass Poll is conducted by SurveyUSA for the Lexington Herald-Leader, The Courier-Journal, WKYT-TV and WHAS-TV.
