reads this L.A. Times headline (with "narrowly" instead of "barely" on the Web version). The opening paragraph reads, "By bare majorities, Californians reject the state Supreme Court's decision to allow same-sex marriages and back a proposed constitutional amendment aimed at the November ballot that would outlaw such unions, a Los Angeles Times/KTLA Poll has found."

It's only in paragraph 6 that reads learn that the amendment "was leading 54% to 35% among registered voters." It's true, as the paragraph says, that "ballot measures on controversial topics often lose support during the course of a campaign" and therefore "strategists typically want to start out well above the 50% support level." But despite this 54%-35% doesn't strike me as "barely"; likewise, the 52%-41% disapproval of the California Supreme Court decision doesn't seem likely "barely reject[ing]" to me.

So while 52% and 54% are indeed not much above 50%, they are much more than barely or narrowly above 41% and 35%. Formulating both the headline and the opening paragraph in terms of "barely" or "narrowly" and "bare majorities," without noting the large margins, strikes me as not the best way of presenting the data to the reader.

I should stress, by the way, that my point here is about the coverage of the poll, not about the likely November results. I suspect that the proposed amendment banning recognition of same-sex marriages will pass (assuming, as seems likely, that it will get on the ballot); but now is not November, and the voters haven't seen the campaigns on both sides. That the view "As long as two people are in love and are committed to each other, it doesn't matter if they are a same-sex couple or a heterosexual couple" polls at 59%-35% in favor suggests that public opinion may well be quite movable, if the issue is framed in that way.

I was under the impression that women tended to oppose same-sex marriage less than men did; consider, for instance, the July 13-27, 2003 poll noted here, in which oppose exceeded favor among women by 12%, and among men by 17%. This ABC News poll reflects the same gender gap.

It was striking, then, to see the opposite breakdown in the L.A. Times California poll. The question,

A proposed amendment to the state's Constitution that may appear on the November ballot would reverse the court's decision and state that marriage is only between a man and a woman. If the election were held today, would you vote for or against the amendment?

Men would vote for by a 43%-41% margin; women would vote for by a 58%-31% margin. As to "Do you agree or disagree with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's decision to respect the court's ruling and not support a ballot initiative to define marriage as only between a man and a woman?," the disagree-agree margin for women is 7% higher than for men. As to "Do you believe that same-sex relationships between consenting adults are morally wrong, or do you believe that it is not a moral issue?," the wrong-not wrong margin for women is 13% higher than for men (though both sexes are more likely to say "not wrong" than wrong). As to "As long as two people are in love and are committed to each other, it doesn't matter if they are a same-sex couple or a heterosexual couple?," the disagree-agree margin for women is 5% higher than for men (though again both sexes are more likely to say "agree"); this last difference is likely statistically insignificant.

Oddly, as to "approve or disapprove of the California Supreme Court's decision last week to allow same-sex marriage in California," the margin is the same, 53%-42% among women and 51%-40% among men.

So some possibilities: (1) California women and men are quite different in this respect from women and men nationwide. (2) The poll was badly conducted. (3) People's views are so soft on the subject that the results aren't terribly reliable (though why would that affect the gender gap?). (4) Two or more of the above.

From the Field summary:

For the first time in over three decades of polling on the issue of same-sex marriage laws, The Field Poll finds more California voters approving than disapproving of allowing same-sex couples the right to marry and having regular marriage laws apply to them. In a survey completed May 17-26 among a random sample of 1,052 registered voters the idea of allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry is now approved by a 51% to 42% margin statewide.

This is up from 44%-50% (with the 50% disapproving) in 2006, and similar numbers in 2003 and 2004. Women are substantially more likely to support recognizing same-sex marriage than men; men favor recognizing same-sex marriage by 4% (within the margin of error), while women favor it by 14%. The proposed constitutional amendment banning recognition of same-sex marriages is opposed by 54%-40% or 51%-43%, depending on how the question is asked. All in all, very different results from those reported by the L.A. Times poll last week.

Note, though, that if civil unions are included as an option, the result becomes 51% to 45% against recognizing same-sex marriage (though that's down from 60% to 36% two years ago).