OTTAWA, August 5, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Ottawa Citizen reported the results of an Environics syndicated poll indicating that 57% of those who identified themselves as Catholics would support same-sex ‘marriage’, while 40% would be opposed. The poll also indicated that 38% of Protestants support same-sex ‘marriages’ and 58% are opposed. Among all Canadians, the survey indicated 53% support and 43% oppose the change in marriage laws. As part of its June 12-July 6 survey on a broad range of public affairs issues, Environics included one question on homosexual “marriage’ which produced the above statistics. The question asked was: “Currently, gay and lesbian couples have the same treatment under Canadian federal law as common-law heterosexual couples. Would you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.” Environics senior associate Derek Leebosh told LifeSite that the poll results were unchanged from 2 years ago when the identical question was asked.
Noteworthy were Leebosh’s surprisingly strong comments on the issue to the Ottawa Citizen. The paper reported him as suggesting that “Liberal backbenchers would be wise to ignore the flurry of negative reaction over same-sex marriage” and that “The backlash politicians have received over the summer from constituents and the Catholic church should be taken in context, given that the silent majority is in favour of same sex marriage”. Continuing to sound like a strategist for the gay activist movement and Church liberals, Leebosh predicted to the Citizen that opponents of gay marriage now face an uphill battle following negative reaction to the Vatican document.
Especially calling into question the objectivity of the survey were Leebosh’s demeaning comments about the superiority of polls versus some MPs supposed assessment of public opinion based on callers to talk radio shows and letters received. By the MPs. The pollster said, “Everybody knows that the people who phone in to talk radio for the most part tend to be right-wing cranks” and that the opponents of marriage are “Males over the age of 60 with low levels of education.” He indicated to LifeSite a dislike for the highly influential Rush Limbaugh program and similar conservative talk radio shows in the U.S. MPs quoted by the Citizen found that their experience does not match Leebosh’s survey results and that opposition to homosexual ‘marriage’ is from a broad demographic of Canadians. It is well-known that polls can produce dramatically different results depending on the questions asked, the context in which the questions are given and the level of understanding of the issue by respondents. Education to counteract the enormous media and institutional propaganda or just plain absence of information to which Canadians have been exposed on the issue is becoming a key strategy of same-sex ‘marriage’ opponents. See the National Post story https://canada.com/national/story.asp?id=B8778DB2-37CD-4C1D-A479-C768C810232F See also reports on U.S. poll results https://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33955