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Most Latinos back gay marriage bans

Catholic roots shape support of traditional family, polls say

By EUNICE MOSCOSO
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 03/24/04

WASHINGTON -- Daniel de Leon has been counseling Latinos with family problems for three decades and fears that the nation's movement toward gay marriage will make the situation worse.

"Those kids are going to suffer," said de Leon, pastor of Templo Calvario in Santa Ana, Calif., the largest Hispanic Evangelical church in the United States. "It's not just a matter of sex, or a matter of two adults being together and having their way. . . . To us, a man and a woman are here to create a family, and the family needs that support of daddy and mama."

De Leon's concerns echo a fear shared by many Hispanics that gay marriage threatens the concept of the family, sacred in Latino culture.

A national survey and polls in different regions show that support for gay marriage and homosexual behavior in general is lower among Hispanics than whites. Only African-Americans have stronger feelings against marriage for gays and lesbians.

In several communities, black and Hispanic priests and pastors are speaking out in favor of a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In Maryland, the only Hispanic in the state Senate is leading the charge against gay marriage.

Several states with large Hispanic populations — including Texas, Florida, California, Illinois and Arizona — already have laws prohibiting or not recognizing same-sex marriages.

Gay rights activists, however, say that the few polls conducted on Latinos and gay marriage are misleading. Given the proper information, they say, Hispanics see the issue as a quest for fairness and civil rights. "Whether their personal conviction or their religious conviction may tell them otherwise, they see discrimination when one group receives benefits that are denied to another group," said Martin Ornelas-Quintero, executive director of LLEGO, a national Latino lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender organization.

Ornelas-Quintero said his group finds positive reactions to gay marriage in Latino focus groups in places such as New York and Miami. "When people see that a life partner of someone else cannot make their medical decisions because they don't have the legal protections under the law, they see it as discrimination," he said.

Political experts are divided on whether gay marriage will be a major factor this year for Hispanic voters, a key swing constituency in several key electoral states, including Florida, New Mexico and Arizona.

Some say Latinos will be strongly influenced by social issues, including gay marriage and abortion, while others say voters will consider only the economy, education and the war in Iraq.

President Bush's endorsement last month of a constitutional amendment that would ban homosexual marriages may have caught the attention of religious Latinos.

A comprehensive national survey of U.S. Hispanics by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that 72 percent of Latinos believe that homosexual sex between adults is "unacceptable," compared with 59 percent of whites.

The poll, released in a 2002 report, also showed Latinos to be more conservative on other social issues, such as abortion and divorce.

In New York state, a recent poll of Democratic voters showed that 27 percent of Hispanics thought gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry legally, compared with 47 percent for whites. The poll was taken this month by Edison Media Research for five television stations and The Associated Press.

In Florida, a recent phone survey by Schroth & Associates for the St. Petersburg Times showed that 20 percent of Hispanics in that state support same-sex marriage, compared with 29 percent of whites.

Harry Pachon, president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California, said the survey results are no surprise.

Around 40 percent of Latino voters are foreign-born, naturalized citizens who come from very conservative Catholic Latin-American nations, he said. "There are a lot of home country attitudes" against homosexuality, he said. But the tolerance for gay marriage and gay clergy increases markedly in the second generation, Pachon added.

Steffen Schmidt, a political science professor at Iowa State University who studies Latino voting patterns, said some Hispanics vote with the church on certain things such as abortion and gay marriage.

"Latinos on some issues are somewhat like Southerners," he said. "A lot of them are practicing Catholics and simply believe that homosexuality is a sin."

Seventy percent of Hispanics surveyed in the Pew Hispanic Center study identified themselves as Catholic, and 14 percent as evangelical or born-again Christians.

Schmidt said the recent ruling by Massachusetts' highest court that gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry creates a "giant problem for Democrats."

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, Bush's apparent Democratic rival in November, is also against gay marriage, but opposes amending the Constitution. Kerry does support civil unions for gays and lesbians, while Bush says it is a matter for the states to decide.

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