Rice’s Kinder survey shows majority support in Houston counties
by Bradley Donalson
Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research has released the results for its 34th annual survey—and they are looking good. The survey included three counties in the greater Houston area, and it shows that support for marriage equality and adoption rights have broken through the 50-percent mark.
In 1993 when the Kinder survey asked respondents if they agreed that “marriages between homosexuals should be given the same legal status as heterosexual marriages,” it received a paltry 31 percent favorable response. In 22 years since, that number has been climbing. When asked the same question this year, the response was 51 percent in agreement.
The same trend could also be seen in the question of whether respondents favored “homosexuals being legally permitted to adopt children.” In 1991, only 17 percent favored equal adoption rights, but in 2014, the number came up to 51 percent favorable.
This year’s survey also asked if residents considered homosexuality to be “morally acceptable,” and that number has grown from 1997’s 21 percent to 52 percent in 2015.
The Kinder Houston Area Survey is the nation’s longest-running study of its kind. Sampling 809 Harris County residents, as well as 399 from Fort Bend County and 403 from Montgomery County, the survey strives to give an accurate representation of the city’s residents across a multitude of factors. With Texas’ overall support for marriage equality somewhere in the mid-40 percentile, it’s nice to know that Houstonians are looking forward.
Read the entire Kinder Houston Area Survey at http://kinder.rice.edu/uploadedFiles/Urban_Research_Center/News/Kinder_Report_2015_lowres.pdf
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