Alabama, Where Same-Sex Marriage Remains Deeply Unpopular

New York Times ^ | February 9, 2015 | Nate Cohn

[reaganaut1]

Public opinion surveys show that a majority of adults — and a growing one — now supports same-sex marriage. But the rapid change in public opinion may obscure another fact: Large areas of the country remain overwhelmingly opposed to same-sex marriage, with little sign of change.

Alabama is one of those places, and the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court this weekend encouraged probate judges there to defy a federal court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

The emerging national majority in favor of same-sex marriage is built on high levels of support in well-educated metropolitan areas, like Seattle, Washington, Minneapolis and Raleigh, N.C. But even in states where voters approved same-sex marriage in 2012 — Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington — rural voters in those states opposed it by a wide margin, often by a wider one than they opposed President Obama.

The stark divide between well-educated and less-educated areas is perhaps most clearly illustrated in North Carolina, which has growing, well-educated metropolitan areas with many new arrivals from other states as well as a rural population with more culturally conservative native Southerners. In 2012, the state considered a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and civil unions, and the result was a very polarized electorate.

...

Those results suggest that Alabama would have voted overwhelmingly against same-sex marriage if it had been on the ballot there in 2012. I estimate the vote would have been roughly 73 percent to 27 percent against same-sex marriage. The estimate is based on the relationship between support for same-sex marriage in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington; educational attainment; population density; the number of evangelical Christians and African-Americans; and support for Mr. Obama.

[Ben Mugged]

If that was true, then why did droves of black voters take a stance contrary to the preaching of the Democrat liberal theology and vote for establishing marriage in California as between a man and a woman (later overruled by California Supreme Court and the Ninth Circus Court).

[MacNaughton]

I have heard/read this canard expressed before about the black slice of the U.S. population pie being opposed to homosexual marriage. The opposition supposedly comes from the black churches. That may have held water 7 years ago, but there has been a major earthquake since the election of BHO. If the black churches were so influential, why haven't they put a dent into the black illegitimate birth rate which currently stands at 72% nationally? It was around 33% in 1960.

We are being inundated with local liberal news coverage in Birmingham of homosexual couples, many black, going to the Jefferson County courthouse to apply for marriage licenses. The JeffCo probate judge's office is issuing the licenses. Birmingham is 72% black and the city government reflects that. The eastern bedroom communities to BHM are predominately white, prosperous and GOP. BHM is a socialist hell hole. The only outcry from the black churches we ever hear in BHM is about white privilege/racism. Yes, many blacks >55 years of age, like whites, are opposed to homosexual marriage, but the younger generations don't see it that way and there are more of them than there are senior citizens.