Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, said. "People have had a year of legal marriage in Massachusetts to see how ending marriage discrimination helps gay and lesbian families and hurts no o­ne."

The poll also showed a slight increase in religious groups' support for marriage rights.

Gay rights advocates such as Wolfson suggest these latest poll results o­n the marriage issue show the effectiveness of gay activism and the impact of equal marriage rights in Massachusetts.

Ohio University keeps similar statistics for its student body. In 2004-2005, 62 percent of first-year students said that spiritual development was an important part of adjusting to college and 81 percent said that it was also important to develop personal values and beliefs, according to a report o­n the Office of Institutional Research Web site (www.ohiou.edu/instres/involve/index.html).

The study, named The Spiritual Life of College Students (http://spirituality.ucla.edu/), was conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute (http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/heri.html) (HERI), a research center of higher education in the United States. HERI is based in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies (http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/) (GSE&IS) at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

The survey, the first of its kind to compare and contrast the religious identity of 18-to-25 year old Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims, classified the plurality of Generation Y (46%) as "Undecided," young people who value faith, but prefer to express it informally. The remaining respondents are identified as either highly religious (27%) or avowedly secular (27%).