Poll: Opposition to NY gay marriage law softening

ALBANY — Now that the protests are silenced, the politics is over and scores of gay weddings are in photo albums, a poll shows opposition appears to be softening against New York's landmark gay marriage law and even Republicans are split on whether it should be overturned by a pending lawsuit. Those are the findings of a NY1-YNN-Marist College poll released Wednesday night. The poll shows Republican voters who had been the strongest opponents are now split — 48 percent to 47 percent — on whether the law should be overturned. That split exists even though most Republicans — 52 percent — still oppose gay marriage. The poll also found that 63 percent of adults don't want the law overturned, almost twice as many adults who do want it overturned. Even 59 percent of New York voters older than 45 years old want the law to stay in place. Older voters had been the most strongly opposed to gay marriage. Overall, the poll finds that 55 percent of registered voters support the measure signed into law June 24 by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The poll also finds that 71 percent of registered votes would attend a gay wedding of a friend or relative — including nearly 7 in 10 Republicans.