WASHINGTON (AP) –Not all the Democrats gathering in Boston are lockstep in support of same-sex marriages. Most of the Southerners attending the party’s convention oppose them, despite overwhelming support elsewhere, according to an Associated Press survey of delegates.

In the national survey of more than 75 percent of the Democratic delegates, two out of three of those expressing a position on same-sex marriages said they favored them. But among the delegates from a dozen Southeastern states, a slight majority was opposed.

No other issue reveals that wide of a regional divide among the party’s delegates. On another major social issue – abortion, 92 percent of the Southern delegates said they supported abortion rights, identical to the national average.

Most Southern Democrats opposed to abortion rights have already left the party, but there’s a “different distribution” when it comes to same-sex marriage, said Emory University political scientist Merle Black.

The split positions on these two social issues may make Southerners unique compared to the rest of the country, but they largely echo the public views expressed by presumed Democratic nominee John Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards. Both strongly support a woman’s right to an abortion. They oppose federally recognized same-sex marriages but also oppose a constitutional amendment that would prohibit states from recognizing them.

Alabama delegate Barbara Howard, an office manager at Tuskegee University who is pledged to Al Sharpton at the convention, says she supports abortion rights but is fiercely against same-sex marriages.

“It’s not Biblical,” she said. “It’s a sin, just like adultery is a sin.”

U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., who is also a delegate, says he’ll support a federal marriage amendment, but he voted against a measure the House passed to prevent federal courts from ordering states to recognize same-sex unions from another state.

“I believe that a federal amendment to the Constitution is the cleanest and most responsible solution,” Davis said.

Although a majority of the Southern delegates said they oppose same-sex marriage, not every state in the region took that stand. A narrow majority of delegates from North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia said they support same-sex marriage, and Florida followed the national average, favoring it 2-to-1.

Alabama delegates opposed same-sex marriage at the highest rate in the South, with more than 85 percent against it. The opposing states included several with ballot initiatives this year addressing the issue – Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana, as well as Arkansas, where signatures are being verified. The others were South Carolina and Tennessee.