HELENA - Montana voters give a decisive thumbs down to granting civil unions to gay and lesbian couples and for allowing wide-open, Vegas-style gambling, a new Lee Newspapers poll shows.

A full 62 percent of respondents said they opposed civil unions, which would give gays and lesbians many of the same legal benefits of marriage currently afforded to married heterosexual couples.

The poll asked 625 registered Montana voters from around the state their stance on a variety of issues facing the upcoming 2005 Legislature. It was conducted Dec. 13 and 14 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc., of Washington, D.C., for Lee Newspapers of Montana. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Two-thirds of Montanans voted in November to change the state constitution to forbid marriage between same-sex couples. However, civil unions, which afford many of the same legal rights of marriage, but have no religious implications, would still be legal under the ban. Montana currently does not grant civil unions.

Several Democratic lawmakers have already proposed laws for the 2005 session that create civil unions in the state.

But according to the Lee Newspaper poll, those views are the distinct minority. Only 34 percent of those surveyed said they supported civil unions, compared with 62 percent against and 4 percent undecided. Men were more effusive in their rejection of the idea than women, with 66 percent of men against civil unions, compared with 58 percent women. Four percent of both men and women were undecided.

Expanding gambling brought out a similar, full-throated rejection among surveyed Montanans. Sixty-nine percent said they would oppose Vegas-style gambling in Montana including slot machines, blackjack and roulette. Only 29 percent of those surveyed said they supported the idea.

Almost three-quarters of women - 74 percent - said they would reject the idea, compared with 64 percent of men.

Only 2 percent of those surveyed said they were undecided, regardless of gender.

In 2003, a coalition of mostly Butte and Anaconda lawmakers led an unsuccessful push for Destination Montana, a plan that would create a wide-open gambling zone in Uptown Butte. Supporters argued the idea would bring tourism and liveliness to the struggling former mining mecca.