A new poll made public Friday found 53 percent of Americans favor marriage rights for gay couples, marking the sixth set of published results in the past few months finding majority support for same-sex nuptials.

The findings are based on Gallup’s May 5-8 Values and Beliefs poll. It found a nine-percentage-point increase in support for same-sex marriage since last year — the largest year-to-year shift measured since Gallup polled consistently on the issue since 2004.

Additionally, the poll was the first time Gallup findings showed support for marriage equality breaking the 50 percent mark.

According to the poll, the increase in support for same-sex marriage came exclusively from political independents and Democrats. The views of Republicans didn’t change.

Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, said the poll affirms that Americas are “thinking anew” on marriage — similar to how President Obama said his views could “evolve” to support marriage rights for gay couples.

“In conversations with their gay and lesbian neighbors, co-workers, and family members, and reflecting on their own values of fairness and respect, Americans have had the opportunity to learn about why marriage matters to same-sex couples and their families,” Wolfson said. “As they’ve heard the stories of loving and committed couples harmed by the denial of marriage and the safety-net it brings, their hearts have opened and minds have changed.”

President Obama received high marks in an unscientific straw poll of LGBT voters the Blade conducted during Capital Pride. (Photo by Pete Souza, courtesy of White House)

Nearly 77 percent of LGBT participants in an unscientific straw poll the Washington Blade conducted during last month’s Capital Pride street festival said they approve of the job President Barack Obama is doing as president.

The president’s 76.9 percent approval rating among the LGBT respondents — most of whom said they live in D.C., Maryland or Virginia — far exceeds the 46 percent approval rating he received from American voters nationwide who participated in a Gallup Poll in June.

Just over 17 percent of the 519 LGBT people who responded to the Blade straw poll said they disapprove of the president’s job performance, and about 6 percent said they had no opinion.

In a separate question on the Blade straw poll, about 51 percent of LGBT respondents said they approve of the job Obama is doing in “addressing LGBT-related issues.” On the matter, about 36 percent said they disapprove and about 13 percent said they had no opinion.

A third question asking respondents to grade Obama “on his handling of LGBT issues” showed a range of opinions. About 8 percent of the straw poll’s LGBT respondents gave Obama an “A” grade, whereas 37.7 percent gave him a “B,” 37.5 percent gave him a “C,” about 13 percent gave him a “D,” and about 2 percent gave him an “F.” The remaining respondents had no opinion.

The Blade straw poll follows a year in which the president has faced sharp criticism from some LGBT activists who say he hasn’t been forceful enough in pushing for LGBT-related bills in Congress, including legislation to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

At the time of his election in November 2008, most LGBT activists agreed that Obama was about to become the nation’s most LGBT-supportive president. As a candidate, Obama said he supported civil unions rather than same-sex marriage, but expressed strong support on virtually all other LGBT issues.

Among other things, he called for repealing “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act, a measure passed by Congress in 1996 that federally defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The act bars married same-sex couples joined in states that allow same-sex marriage from receiving any of the federal rights or benefits of marriage that wedded opposite-sex couples receive.

The president has continued to speak in favor of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and DOMA, has appointed a record number of high-level openly LGBT officials throughout the federal government, and has hosted LGBT events at the White House.

His LGBT supporters say the criticism is unfair. They note that the Obama administration has taken extensive action on the LGBT front and should not be held responsible for inaction by Congress, which has stalled in the approval of most LGBT-related bills.

That the Blade straw poll shows the president with an overall 76.9 percent approval rating among LGBT respondents suggests large numbers of LGBT people continue to have confidence in Obama while having concerns about his handling of at least some LGBT-related issues.

“I think the overall view is that we still like him,” said Peter Rosenstein, a gay Democratic activist.

“But I think it shows there’s a feeling it would be very nice if he spoke out on our issues in the same forceful way he did about health care to the Congress,” Rosenstein said. “There’s a frustration that he is not speaking out forcefully enough on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and on [the Employment Non-Discrimination Act] and our community wants to see more action.”

Andrew Tobias, who’s gay and serves as treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, said he understands the frustration of some of the Blade poll respondents who are disappointed that more LGBT-related advances have not materialized.

“But we also need to recognize that in less than two years, with so much else on his plate, Obama’s made a terrific start, and a night-and-day difference over where we were or where we would have been with [Republican presidential candidate John] McCain.”

Tobias said the Blade poll results show an overwhelming majority gave the president a favorable rating and a passing grade.

“If you had asked people to rate the Republicans, virtually 100 percent would have flunked them outright,” he said.

But Clarke Cooper, executive director of the gay partisan group Log Cabin Republicans, said the Blade poll indicates that LGBT voters are questioning the president’s actions on LGBT issues, especially the administration’s decision to oppose in court a Log Cabin lawsuit seeking to overturn the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law.

“It is presumptuous of President Obama and the DNC to assume LGBT voters will march in blind lock-step support of the president,” Cooper said.

Organizers of the Capital Pride festival, the D.C. area’s annual LGBT Pride event, estimated about 200,000 people turned out for the event, which was held June 13 along Pennsylvania Avenue near the U.S. Capitol.

The Blade staff invited festival attendees to participate in the straw poll as they walked past the Blade’s booth. Participation included filling out a one-page, confidential questionnaire and placing the completed questionnaire in a closed ballot box.

Of the 559 respondents, about 59 percent identified as gay, about 26 percent as lesbian, about 5 percent as bisexual, about 1 percent as transgender, and about 3 percent as queer. The remaining 6 percent identified as straight.

The Blade isolated the respondents identifying as straight from its calculation of the results so that a more accurate presentation of the straw poll’s LGBT sample could be obtained.

A separate calculation of the poll’s 36 straight respondents, showed that about 72 percent approved of the job the president is doing, while about 22 percent disapproved and about 5 percent had no opinion. On the question of how the president was doing on LGBT-related issues, about 34 percent of the straight respondents expressed approval, while some 25 percent expressed disapproval and 40 percent had no opinion.

Among all straw poll respondents, about 82 percent identified themselves as white, about 10 percent as black, 5 percent as Latino, about 3 percent as Asian/Pacific Islander, and another 3 percent as other.

Similar to nationwide public opinion polls such as the Gallup Poll, black respondents to the Blade poll gave a higher approval rating to the president than white respondents.

On the Blade poll’s question on whether respondents approve or disapprove of how Obama is doing as president, nearly 91 percent of the black LGBT respondents said they approve compared to less than 2 percent who said they disapprove. The remaining 7 percent of black LGBT respondents had no opinion.

On the same question, more than 77 percent of white LGBT respondents said they approve of the job the president is doing compared to about 18 percent who said they disapproved, while about 4 percent had no opinion.

The difference between black and white respondents narrowed on the question of how the president is doing on LGBT-related issues. About 60 percent of black respondents said they approved of the president’s handling of LGBT issues, while about 19 percent said they disapproved and some 21 percent had no opinion on the question.

Among white respondents, nearly 50 percent said they approved of President Obama’s handling of LGBT-related issues and about 35 percent said they disapproved, while about 15 percent said they had no opinion.

Gallup Poll results from a June survey shows 46 percent of American voters approve of Obama’s job performance. A Rasmussen Poll also conducted in July shows that just 27 percent of the respondents “strongly approve” of the overall job the president is doing compared to 43 percent who “strongly disapprove.”

High unemployment rates and the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster were among the issues that the Gallup and Rasmussen polls indicated were factors in respondents saying they disapprove of the job the president is doing.

Dan Pinello, who’s gay and a political science professor at the City University of New York, said the overall support the Blade straw poll found for Obama’s job performance is consistent with national exit polls of LGBT voters conducted by the news media for presidential elections.

He noted that the exit polls have consistently shown that LGBT voters support the Democratic presidential candidate at about 75 percent.

Pinello said he was unsurprised over the Blade poll finding that the Obama approval rating drops to about 50 percent on the question of how the president is handling LGBT-related issues. He noted that since the sample consists of self-identified LGBT people at a Pride event in Washington, the respondents most likely are “skewed” toward more politically aware people.

“But in the minds of many in our community, Barack Obama has not lived up to his campaign promises,” Pinello said. “Plus, Barack Obama has had an ambitious political agenda, much of which he’s accomplished. He got the health reform bill through Congress. He got the stimulus package passed. He got financial reform passed. Lots of major, consequential, historic legislation has passed in the last year and a half. And I think a lot of gay people, especially in the nation’s capital who are very attuned to these issues, are looking at that and saying, ‘Why not us?’”

A majority of voters continue to support allowing gays to serve openly in the U.S. military, 57-36 percent, according to a new poll.

But the same findings, published Wednesday by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, found that voters favor restrictions on gay service members “exhibiting” their sexual orientation on the job, 54-38.

The new poll is consistent with several polls in recent years showing that the American public favors repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the 1993 law prohibiting gays, lesbians and bisexuals from serving openly in the U.S. military.

Support for repeal was particularly strong among Democrats, who favor repeal 72-23 percent. Independents support open service 56-37 percent, while Republicans oppose repeal by 53-40 percent.

Responders from military households with an active or reserve member or a veteran in their family were divided on repeal, 48-47 percent. Men narrowly favor repeal, 51-44 percent, while women support open service, 62-29 percent.

Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement that the new findings show “American voters say go ahead and allow gays to openly serve in the military.”

“But they are much more mixed on exactly how the transformation of the military will occur and how the Pentagon should adjust to needs of gay soldiers, sailors and Marines,” he said.

Brown also said the poll “perhaps surprisingly” found little difference in support for repeal among different age groups. The poll found that 57 percent of people ages 18-34 favor repeal; 59 percent of people ages 35-54 favor repeal; and 54 percent of people age 55 or older favor repeal.

The poll offered other findings on topics related to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”:

• voters said prohibiting open gays from serving in the U.S. military amounts to discrimination, 66-31 percent;

• responders said the military shouldn’t pursue disciplinary action against gays who are outed by third parties, 82-10 percent;

• voters said ending the law won’t be divisive in the U.S. military or impair the nation’s ability to fight effectively, 65-30 percent;

• responders said the U.S. military shouldn’t provide domestic partner benefits for service members with same-sex partners, 50-43 percent;

• and responders were split on whether straight service members should be required to share quarters with gay personnel, 45-46 percent.

Nathaniel Frank, author of “Unfriendly Fire” and research fellow at the Palm Center, a think-tank on gays in the military at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said the findings are “a reminder of just how poorly understood [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’] is, and also of the limitations of polls.”

“Respondents say highly contradictory things, including the assertion that majorities both oppose restrictions on openly gay service and believe that such openness should continue to be restricted,” he said.

Frank said the notion of whether the ban on open service is discrimination isn’t “a matter of opinion but an empirical question.”

“Whether banning open gays is discrimination in the first place is not open to question, and even the creators of [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’] acknowledge the policy is discriminatory,” he said.

But Frank said the new findings have “some relevance to the debate” because they show continued decline in opposition to open service over time.

“While polls should not be the basis of social or military policy, these trends do undercut the old ‘unit cohesion’ argument that says openly gay service will harm the bonds of trust that create cohesive units,” he said. “As tolerance of, and comfort with, homosexuality continues to rise, it becomes harder to claim with a straight face that working closely with a gay person is going to bring down the world’s most powerful fighting force.”

Quinnipiac University determined the results of the survey by surveying 2,617 registered voters nationwide, Feb. 2-8. The margin of error is 1.9 percentage points.

A Washington Post poll published Sunday shows that 56 percent of adult D.C. residents surveyed favor legalizing same-sex marriage in the city compared to 35 percent who said they oppose it, with 9 percent saying they had no opinion.

But the same poll also found that 59 percent of residents surveyed favor putting the issue to a public vote in a ballot measure. The poll found that 37 percent oppose bringing the issue to a citywide vote.

The poll also identified significant differences on the same-sex marriage issue along racial lines. But the opposition to gay nuptials by blacks doesn’t appear to be as strong as local gay marriage opponents have predicted.

An overwhelming 83 percent of whites responding to the poll said they favor legalizing same-sex marriage, while 12 percent oppose it. A bare majority of 51 percent of blacks said they oppose legalizing gay marriage in the District; 37 percent polled said they support it.

According to the survey, 4 percent of whites and 12 percent of blacks said they had no opinion on the issue.

Although the poll’s finding that an overall majority of 56 percent support legalized same-sex marriage at this time, LGBT activists familiar with ballot measures on the issue in other states could view the D.C. poll results with caution. In a number of states, including California, voter support for same-sex marriage dropped sharply following well funded and what LGBT activists called highly negative campaigns waged by same-sex marriage opponents.

Voter initiatives or referenda seeking to prohibit same-sex marriage have won in every state where they’ve been placed on the ballot.

In D.C., a 1978 law barring ballot measures that would result in discrimination against minorities protected by the city’s Human Rights Act has so far prevented local opponents of same-sex marriage from putting the issue up for a public vote. The opponents have vowed to continue to challenge city rulings against a marriage ballot measure in court.

The Post poll shows that white and black voters differ sharply over whether to bring the gay marriage question to a public vote. Among blacks, 70 percent responding to the poll favor holding a citywide vote on the issue, while 25 percent say a ballot measure should not be held. Six percent had no opinion.

Among whites, 58 percent opposed bringing the gay marriage issue to a public vote; 39 percent favored such a vote. Three percent had no opinion.

The Post’s poll included responses from 1,135 adults reached by either landline or cell phone during Jan. 24-28. The paper says the poll has a 3 percent margin of error.

The race to succeed the late Sen. Edward Kennedy in the U.S. Senate could be tightening up as one recent poll shows an anti-gay Republican running even with the pro-LGBT Democratic candidate.

A poll published Saturday by Public Policy Polling shows state Sen. Scott Brown, the GOP candidate vying to succeed Kennedy, one point ahead of Democratic nominee and Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley.

In a poll of residents who planned to vote in the special election — which occurs Jan. 19 — Public Policy Polling found that 48 percent said they intended to vote for Brown, while 47 percent said they would vote for Coakley. Six percent of responders said they were undecided.

Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling, said in a statement that the poll shows the special election is “shaping up to be a potential disaster for Democrats.”

“Martha Coakley’s complacent campaign has put Scott Brown in a surprisingly strong position and she will need to step it up in the final week to win a victory once thought inevitable,” Debnam said.

Public Policy Polling’s poll speculated that Brown found strong support in an overwhelmingly “blue” state because of depressed Democratic interest in the election and because he’s favored by independent voters.

The poll could be an outlier. Another poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center and published Sunday by the Boston Globe found Coakley had a 17-point lead over Brown. Fifty-three percent of responders said they would vote for her, while 36 percent said they intended to vote for Brown.

Neither Coakley’s campaign nor Brown’s campaign responded to DC Agenda’s requests for comment, but the candidates’ records significantly diverge on LGBT issues, particularly with regard to same-sex marriage.

In 2007, Brown voted in the state legislature for a failed state constitutional amendment that would have taken marriage rights away from gay couples in the first state in the country to allow same-sex marriage.

By comparison, Coakley supports same-sex marriage and as attorney general has been a proponent of federal recognition for married same-sex couples. Last year, she filed a lawsuit on behalf on the State of Massachusetts against the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that prohibits married same-sex couples from receiving the federal benefits of marriage.

The candidates’ campaign web sites also are markedly different in how they handle LGBT issues. Coakley’s site details how she supports legislation that would affect the LGBT community, such as legislative repeal of DOMA and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Her site additionally notes that as attorney general she has “aggressively prosecuted” hate crimes at the state level — including those against LGBT people — and that she in 2008 was the first statewide official to endorse state legislation that included gender expression and identity in Massachusetts discrimination and hate crimes laws.

Brown’s site lacks mention of issues specifically affecting LGBT people — with the exception of marriage. The site says that Brown believes marriage is between one man and woman and says, “States should be free to make their own laws in this area, so long at they reflect the people’s will as expressed through them directly, or as expressed through their elected representatives.”

Michael Mitchell, executive director of National Stonewall Democrats, said helping Coakley win the special election “couldn’t be more important” for LGBT people because a 60-seat Democratic majority in the Senate is needed to advance LGBT rights in Congress.

“I think that things are going to be a lot worse off if there’s 59 Democrats in the Senate instead of 60,” he said.

Noting that the election will determine who would succeed Kennedy —perhaps the greatest proponent of LGBT issues in the Senate — Mitchell said “it would be a strange world indeed” to replace the so-called Liberal Lion with a Republican like Brown.

Mitchell said Stonewall was “pulling out all the stops” to help Coakley win the election. He noted that the organization is sending out an e-mail blast to members across the country, urging them to contribute to Coakley’s campaign and participate in phone banking activities.

The local Stonewall chapter in Massachusetts, Mitchell said, is hosting an event where supporters can gather to do phone banking for Coakley.

Also backing Coakley in the special election is MassEquality, the statewide LGBT organization in Massachusetts. The organization endorsed Coakley in November.