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The hip, young, middle-class women of downtown Montreal are all for it. But talk to the grey-haired farmer driving his combine over a Saskatchewan wheat field about same-sex marriage and it's another story entirely.

As the Supreme Court of Canada sits down this week to hear arguments on the constitutional right of gays and lesbians to marry, an Ipsos-Reid poll conducted for The Globe and Mail and CTV has found that a little more than half of Canadians support allowing same-sex couples to marry and almost as many are comfortable describing those unions as marriages.

But the institution of gay marriage has hardly hit the mainstream. The poll shows that approval or disapproval depends on age, gender, income and place of residence. And while support for homosexual marriage has remained at about the same level for the past several years, unease is growing with calling those unions marriages.

"The overall conception of the equality of a relationship that should be recognized in law hasn't changed," said John Wright, Ipsos-Reid senior vice-president. "The debate has risen in temperature around the definition and use of the word 'marriage.' " The telephone poll of 1,001 Canadians found that 54 per cent said they support permitting same-sex couples to marry and register their marriages with the province after they were informed that appeal courts in Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Yukon had struck down the common-law definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

Forty-three per cent opposed same-sex marriage; 3 per cent had no opinion.

If the Supreme Court rules that same-sex marriage is constitutional, 52 per cent of those polled said, they would fully accept both the ruling and the use of the word marriage to describe all legal unions. Forty-five per cent insisted the federal government should ensure that the legal use of the word apply only to husbands and wives.

But opinions in the more rural, conservative Prairie provinces and Atlantic Canada jarred with those in more cosmopolitan Ontario and Quebec. Likewise, the younger generation of Canadian adults was far more open to the prospect of same-sex marriage than those in their parents' generation. Women and those with higher levels of education and income were more comfortable with it than men and people with less schooling and lower wages.

"I would argue that it's an exposure issue," Mr. Wright said. . . . The more exposure, the more support there is."

The poll found that: Sixty-four per cent of adults under 34 supported same-sex marriage, while only 41 per cent of those 55 and older did; Fifty-eight per cent of people living in urban settings approved of gays being allowed to marry, compared with 37 per cent of those in rural areas; Fifty-one per cent of men opposed gay marriage, but only 36 per cent of women objected; Sixty per cent of Canadians with at least some postsecondary education approved of gay marriage; 44 per cent of those with a high-school diploma or less were in favour.

The poll has a 95-per-cent statistical likelihood of approximating within 3.1 percentage points, upward or downward, the findings that would have been obtained had the entire Canadian population been interviewed.

Canadians' support for gay marriage has barely changed since Ipsos-Reid conducted its first poll in the mid-nineties. Back in 1996, the pollster found that 49 per cent of people approved of same-sex unions, the same level of support it reported a year ago after provincial appeal courts started to declare the heterosexual definition of marriage as unconstitutional. An earlier poll published in 1999 found that 55 per cent of Canadians backed same-sex marriage.

In its poll published last year, when Ipsos-Reid asked whether Canadians were comfortable with calling same-sex unions marriages, 37 per cent were not. A year later, opposition had swelled to 45 per cent.

Poll results

Since August, 1996, Ipsos-Reid has surveyed Canadians' views of same-sex marriage with questions varying slightly in wording. Here is a look at five surveys from 1996 to October, 2004. In the latest survey the question was: "As you may know, the courts in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Manitoba and the Yukon have recognized same-sex marriages in their province or territory and made them legal. Based on knowing this, do you support or oppose same-sex couples being allowed to marry and register their marriage with their provincial government?"

Question: Now, let's suppose the Supreme Court of Canada rules similarly that same-sex marriage is constitutional. Would you accept this decision fully with no restrictions in its application and that the word marriage be used for everyone or do you want the federal government to do everything it can to make the legal use of the word marriage apply only to heterosexuals in law - that is, a man and a woman?"

Use of the word marriage

Accept: 52%

Restrict: 45%

SOURCE: IPSOS-REID

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