Around half of Bermuda residents support gay cruises visiting Bermuda but just a quarter back the idea of gay marriage on the Island.

The statistics were no surprise to Government Senator and social justice campaigner Walton Brown, who said attitudes still need to change.

"Bermuda has been a very conservative society," he said. "I would always like to see those figures higher but Bermuda has not yet reached the point where the overwhelming majority accept that everybody should be treated equally before the law."

The poll was conducted between June 29 and July 4 by research company Mindmaps, a month after the Celebrity Summit cruise ship brought a shipload of gay travellers to the Island.

There were no protests, and a welcoming party for the visitors attracted a crowd of more than 100 people to the bar Latin in Hamilton.

That was in sharp contrast to events in 2007 when a cruise company owned by US celebrity Rosie O'Donnell cancelled a trip to the Island for gay families after church groups threatened protests.

The then leader of Government's Faith Based Tourism initiative, Andre Curtis, led a vocal group of conservative Christians who opposed the trip. He said at the time: "We may just choose to pick them [the passengers] up by bus and bus them to our church, to different denominations, and have the pastors pray for them."

News of the cancelled cruise hit the international headlines.

When Mindmaps polled 401 Bermuda residents aged 18 and over on the issue for the latest poll, 53 percent said they supported gay cruises visiting Bermuda. A total of 21 percent listed themselves as opposed, with the rest saying they had no firm view either way or did not know.

A breakdown of the figures shows a smaller portion of the black community 42 percent supports gay cruises than the white community, at 64 percent.

A total of 29 percent of black people listed themselves as opposed to such cruises, compared to just 11 percent of white people.

The campaign group Two Words and a Comma is pushing for an amendment to Bermuda's Human Rights Act to protect people of all sexual orientations from discrimination.

Elizabeth Christopher from the group said last night: "It's worthy of mention that as far as I am aware, not a single person protested about the cruise ship that came in early June.

"I think it's showing people's attitudes fundamentally are changing, I don't know why. I would hope it's because of the campaign that gays and lesbians need to be protected as a group under the Human Rights Act."

She said of the poll results on the cruise ship issue: "It's a good development, realising that Bermuda should not be seen as a Country that promotes discrimination in any form."

When it comes to legalising gay marriage in Bermuda, 27 percent of people polled were in favour, but more than half 51 percent were opposed to the idea.

Again, the issue was more palatable to white people, with 45 percent for and 30 percent against, in comparison to black people who were 68 percent opposed and just 14 percent in favour of same-sex unions.

Argentina yesterday became the first Latin American nation to legalise gay marriage, granting same-sex couples all the legal rights, responsibilities and protections that marriage brings to heterosexuals. Same-sex marriages are also legal in Belgium, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain and Sweden.

Other countries, including the UK and some states of America recognise civil partnerships and unions. Dozens of other jurisdictions are in the process of debating the issue.

Sen. Brown said of Bermuda: "Marriage is seen by a large number of people as being something between a man and a woman and it has many significant ramifications for society as a whole, and at some point we need to have a discussion about that. My position is we need to live in a society in which all people are treated equally."

The data in the poll was weighted to be representative of Bermuda's population on the factors of age, gender, race, and nationality. The margin or error was 4.9 percent.