A study in Bermuda has shown that while 53% of residents were in favor of gay cruises stopping in the island nation, only 27% supported marriage equity.
The Royal Gazettereports that Mindmaps, a research company, conducted the study on a group of 401 adult Bermuda residents between June 29 and July 4. The study had a 4.9% margin of error.
To government senator Walton Brown, this was to be expected: "Bermuda has been a very conservative society. I would always like to see those figures higher, but Bermuda has not yet reached the point where the overwhelming majority accept that everybody should be treated equally before the law."
Yet there has been progress. In 2007 a gay family cruise to Bermuda aboard a liner owned by Rosie O'Donnell was canceled after the threat of activism from religious groups. Then, leader of a faith-based tourism initiative Andre Curtis went so far as to threaten to pick up the cruise passengers and bus them to various churches so that clergy could pray for them.
Now, only a month before the Mindmaps research project, a gay cruise docked without protest. On the contrary, the passengers were met with a welcome party that attracted island residents as well as vacationers.
Elizabeth Christopher, a representative from equal rights group Two Words and a Comma, sees the recent reaction and the new statistics as promising. "It's worthy of mention that as far as I am aware, not a single person protested about the cruise ship that came in early June," she says. "I think it's showing people's attitudes fundamentally are changing. I don't know why. I would hope it's because of the campaign that gays and lesbians need to be protected as a group under the Human Rights Act."
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