Big Polling News: Texas Voters Reject Anti-LGBT Discrimination

We’ve been telling you about all the bills filed in the Texas Legislature this year that would enshrine into state law discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. But what do Texas voters think about this? A new poll shows pro-discrimination politicians may have seriously miscalculated. Check out the press release we just sent.

A new poll shows that the more than 20 bills filed in the Legislature that promote discrimination against gay and transgender people don’t reflect the values of a large majority of Texans, the president of the Texas Freedom Network said.

“These poll results should serve as a wake up call for those who think promoting discrimination is a good political strategy in Texas,” Miller said. “Passing these bills wouldn’t just damage our state’s national reputation and bring to Texas the same condemnation from business and the rest of the country that we saw with similar legislation in Indiana. We also know now that these bills contradict the values of a large majority of Texas voters, who think discrimination against people because of who they are and whom they love is just plain wrong.”

Bills filed in the Legislature this year appear to be part of a strategy to subvert a potential U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down the state’s marriage ban as unconstitutional and lock in discrimination against gay and transgender people, Miller said. The resulting litigation would be costly for taxpayers as well as gay and transgender couples simply trying to exercise their constitutionally protected rights.

The survey of 800 likely voters in Texas was conducted by G Squared Public Strategies on April 6-10, 2015, and has a margin of error of 3.46% at the 95% confidence level. The poll results are available at www.txwins.org/PollingMemo.

Texas Wins, a statewide coalition of Texans who oppose discrimination, released the poll results today. Key poll findings noted in the Texas Wins press release:

• More than half of the poll’s respondents identified as conservative and three-quarters said religion is extremely or very important to them personally.
• A strong majority of voters believe that discrimination against the gay and transgender community is a problem.
• Nearly 63 percent of voters would support a law protecting gay and transgender people from discrimination.
• A majority of Republicans are concerned about discrimination and support efforts to protect gay and transgender individuals from employment discrimination.
• Despite their personal commitment to religion, when asked about religious exemption laws generally, more than 52 percent of voters opposed such laws.
• Voters overwhelmingly believe that religious freedom is protected by the U.S. Constitution, and that protecting religious freedom has fostered healthy diversity in American culture.
• While they value religious freedom, 79 percent of voters believe that this freedom does not give individuals license to hurt others.
• A strong majority of voters reject the notion that gay marriage threatens religious freedom.

The pollsters for G Squared include Greg Strimple and Robert Jones. Strimple served as a senior advisor to the John McCain for President campaign. Before joining G Squared, Jones worked for two cycles at the National Republican Congressional Committee, mostly recently as the West Regional Political Director.