Abstract We examine whether conservative politicians are less likely to support same-sex marriage when they run for office in safe rather than in contested districts using new data based on a roll-call vote in the national German parliament. The results show that the margin of the majority for the incumbent in the previous election was a strong predictor for supporting same-sex marriage. When the majority increased by a 1 percentage point, the likelihood of voting in favour of same-sex marriage decreased by around 1.3 percentage points. We conjecture that politicians are election-motivated - even when submitting roll-call votes on a matter of conscience.

中文翻译：

---

保守派政治家和同性婚姻投票

摘要我们使用德国国会通过唱名表决的新数据，研究保守派政客在安全地点竞选时是否支持同性婚姻，而不是在有争议的地区支持同性婚姻。结果表明，在前一次选举中，现任议员的多数席位是支持同性婚姻的有力预测指标。当大多数人增加1个百分点时，赞成同性婚姻的可能性降低了约1.3个百分点。我们猜想政客是出于选举动机的，即使就良心问题进行唱名表决也是如此。