HARRISBURG, Pa. — According to a poll released yesterday by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, majority of Pennsylvania voters oppose same-sex marriage and prefer states making their own laws on same-sex marriage rather than amending the U.S. Constitution.

Sixty-three percent of voters opposed same-sex marriage, 50 percent said states should decide on regulating same-sex marriage while 38 percent preferred a Constitutional amendment. 31 percent favored such a law and 6 percent were undecided. The respondents showed favor on civil unions by 41 percent.

The institute's assistant director, Clay F. Richards, said the findings show that Pennsylvania voters hold generally conservative values on social issues. An earlier Quinnipiac poll showed 58 percent believed homosexuality was morally wrong.

"People tend to think of (Pennsylvania) as being more liberal, because there's a major city that people more normally think of as having a liberal record, but the Philadelphia vote does not sway the state," Richards said.

Forty-two percent of voters in the survey said same-sex marriage was not an important factor in how they will vote in the presidential election, but 14 percent said it was extremely important and 43 percent said it was very important or somewhat important.

The institute surveyed 1,022 registered Pennsylvania voters by telephone between March 9 and March 15. The sampling error margin for the survey is plus or minus three percentage points.