By JIM BARON

A new poll of Rhode Islanders’ attitudes toward same-sex marriage drew markedly different responses than a different poll taken two weeks ago, finding a 43-36 percent plurality opposed to homosexual unions.

The poll of 400 Rhode Island voters also indicated that 74 percent think voters should decide the issue in a referendum, as opposed to 10 percent who think the legislature should make that call.
Conducted by Quest Research of Smithfield and its founder Victor Profughi, by telephone June 8 and 9, the poll results diverged substantially from a Brown University poll conducted last month that showed Ocean State residents supporting same-sex marriage by a two-to-one margin, 60 to 31 percent.
Profughi’s poll which has a margin of error of 4.9 percent, also indicated that Rhode Islanders consider gay marriage a low-priority political question, especially when stacked up against pocketbook issues, such as jobs and the economy.
When asked to say what they think is the most important issue the legislature should address, almost one-third of the respondents (30 percent) said jobs and 19 percent said the economy. That was followed by the state budget and its deficit, 13 percent; taxes, 11 percent, and health and education, each mentioned by 5 percent. Gay marriage was brought up by 2 percent of those answering
When prompted with a list of issues and asked which ones they think are the first and second most important for the government to work on,  jobs and the economy were the combined first (41 percent) and second (22 percent) of 63 percent of the survey subjects. Health care reform was the first choice of 15 percent and the second choice of 23 percent, for a combined total, with rounding, of 30 percent.
Lowering taxes got a combined score of 31 percent and government corruption 29 percent. Legalizing same sex marriages was the first choice of 3 percent and the second choice of 4 percent for a combined total of 7.
“Although much has been made in the media recently of Rhode Island’s sole status in New England as a holdout against legalizing gay marriage,” Profughi said in a statement released with the poll results, “it is obvious that the issue is not on the agenda of the average person in Rhode Island.”
The poll was commissioned by the Rhode Island Chapter of the National Organization for Marriage, a group opposed to same-sex marriage that lobbies to maintain the definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
Christopher Plante, executive director of NOM Rhode Island, said the group is “pleased but not surprised” by the poll’s outcome.
“It makes sense to me,” Plante said in a telephone interview with The Times. “It confirms what we have been saying all along.”
Given the results of the Quest poll, Plante said, “one would have to expect that the Brown poll is the outlier” in finding that gay marriage has the 2-1 support of Rhode Islanders. He pointed out that even a poll conducted by the pro-gay marriage group Marriage Equality of RI found only 49 percent of Rhode Islanders favoring homosexual marriage and 37 percent opposed.
Asked what the results mean, Plante said, “the (RI) House of Representatives should finish the business of Rhode Island and not be bullied by people” into using the Brown poll results as a reason to take action on same-sex marriage bills currently before the judiciary committees of both the House and Senate.  
He said the poll’s findings show that not only do the citizens of the state not want same-sex marriage, “they don’t want the legislature dealing with it.”
Plante denied that the Brown poll was the impetus for NOM Rhode Island commissioning its own poll, saying that process had already started when the Brown results were issued, but he allowed that it might have sped the timetable up a bit. He declined to say how much NOM Rhode Island paid to have Quest conduct the poll.
Although both Plante and Profughi insist that “the survey was independently administered and developed by Quest Research which is solely responsible for its findings, presentation and analysis,” Plante acknowledges he asked Profughi to change the wording of one question at the request of NOM’s national organization.
Read to survey respondents as: “As far as you are concerned personally, do you favor or oppose same-sex marriage in Rhode Island?” Plante said the question was originally worded “…do you favor or oppose legalizing same-sex marriage in Rhode Isalnd?”
According to background information Profughi released with the poll, 68.3 percent of the people who responded to the poll were 50 or older, 31.3 percent were under 50 and only 8.5 percent were younger than 35.
Profughi said “younger voters are always harder to reach” and “that problem is compounded” by the heavy use of cell phones among young people. He said federal regulations forbid anyone taking surveys by computerized dialing to call cell phones.
A message seeking comment from Marriage Equality Rhode Island was not answered on Monday.