The goal of the present research was to validate a Portuguese version of Pearl and Galupo's (2007) Attitudes toward Same-Sex Marriage Scale (ATSM). Participants were 1,402 heterosexual men and women that completed an on-line questionnaire. The final 15-item scale formed a single factor showing high internal consistency, as also obtained in the original validation study. In a general way, the results indicate a clearly positive attitude toward same-sex marriage. Furthermore, analysis of the scale's predictors demonstrates how a left-wing orientation and the level of denial of deservingness for lesbian/gay discrimination prove to be the best predictors of attitudes towards same-sex marriage. On the whole, these results indicate that the Portuguese ATSM version is a reliable instrument for carrying out scientific research and measuring and monitoring public opinion on this subject.Keywords: Same-sex marriage, scale validation, Attitudes, predictors
ResúmenEl objetivo del presente estudio fue validar la versión en portugués de Escala de Actitudes hacia el casamiento entre personas del mismo sexo (ATSM) de Pearl y Galupo (2007). Los participantes fueran 1.402 hombres y mujeres heterosexuales que completaran este cuestionario on-line. La escala final de 15 ítems formó un solo factor que muestra una alta consistencia interna, también obtenida en el estudio de validación inicial. De manera general, los resultados indican una actitud claramente positiva hacia el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo. Además, el análisis de los predictores de la escala muestra cómo una orientación de izquierda y el nivel de negación del 3 merecimiento de la discriminación de lesbianas / gay son los mejores predictores de las actitudes hacia el casamiento entre personas del mismo sexo. En conjunto, estos resultados indican que la versión ATSM portugués es un instrumento fiable para llevar a cabo investigación científica, la medición y seguimiento de la opinión pública sobre este tema. also promulgated same-sex marriage either fully or in equivalent legal forms. As a result, same-sex marriage has gained increasing coverage in the national and global media. Despite the increasing globalization of this phenomenon, the majority of the studies in this area were developed in the US, while in European countries this research area still remains underdeveloped.Since the 2000's, Portugal has introduced legislation to prevent discrimination.Either by protecting individual rights, such as the explicit reference to sexual orientation in the Constitutional Principle of Equality (article 13) in 2004, or by securing relational rights, such as the introduction of same-sex de facto unions in 2001 and the same-sex marriage law in 2010 (Roseneil, Crowhurst, Hellsund, Santos, & Stoilova, 2013). As argued by Author (2013), these legislative changes do not seem to be enough to challenge widespread heterosexism, in contexts such as public demonstrations of affects between same-sex couples or feelings of multiple discrimination in the public sphere.Ther...