Posted on 03/08/2007 2:59:43 AM PST by markomalley
Support for same-sex marriage in California has increased by nearly 50 percent in the past two decades, largely because of views held by a new, younger generation of residents, an analysis of Field polls during that period has found.
About half of Californians still disapprove of same-sex marriage, but 43 percent approve, according to the survey. In 1985 only 30 percent of people surveyed by the Field Poll approved.
Age is one of the strongest predictors of attitudes on same-sex marriages. Currently, acceptance ranges from 25 percent among those born before 1940 to 58 percent among those born in the 1980s, according to the report.
"The movement toward being more favorable on same-sex marriage can be explained simply by new generations of voters coming into the voter mix," said Charles Gossett, a political scientist at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.
Gossett and Gregory Lewis, a political scientist at Georgia State University, analyzed 22 years of Field polls on the issue.
People in every age group were at least four times as likely to say that they had become more accepting of homosexual relations since they turned 18.
A 2006 Field Poll found 45 percent of Californians said they had become more accepting of homosexual relations since they were young adults, while 9 percent said they had become less accepting.
"Regardless of one's age, people are reporting that they're becoming more accepting of homosexuality," Gossett said.
Every population sub-group in California has shown a net increase in acceptance of same-sex relationships and gay marriage in general over the past two decades. But they have done so at different rates based largely on political and religious affiliation.
Forty-nine percent of Democrats said they were more accepting, compared to 43 percent of Independents and 39 percent of Republicans.
Forty-seven percent of people who said they had no religious affiliation and 45 percent of Jewish respondents reported they were more accepting. The rate was 42 percent for born-again Christians.
Racial and ethnic differences also play a role in determining attitudes on the issue. Latinos are more likely to oppose same-sex marriage than non-Hispanic whites.
African-Americans are even more opposed than Latinos to same-sex marriages, and their level of opposition has not changed in two decades.
Support for same-sex marriage in California is stronger than in most other states because of the state's relatively young population, according to the authors.
The state ranks 45th in the percentage of its population over age 64 and has experienced a more rapid increase in the percentage of its population under age 18 than over 65 percent.
Gossett said the analysis did not determine what other factors are driving changes in attitudes in California about same-sex marriage.
"Unfortunately, it's not easy to ask that kind of a question on a survey because there are so many possible different answers," he said.
Nor, he said, can authors predict when _ or if _ a majority of Californians will support same-sex marriage.
"We don't have any projection when it will be a majority or whether or not this is an unstoppable trend, or something could happen that would stop it," he said.
The findings in the report were based on independent random-sample surveys of adults in California conducted between 1985 and 2006. Trend analyses were based on a total of 4,300 telephone interviews completed over that period.
What's up with that?
ping for your list
It'd just be repealed by the next generation and both parties look at all those up-and-coming voters with delirious delight.
So younger folks more likely to support *but* Hispanics not so as CA becomes more Hispanic, homosexuals lose ground it otherwise gains in appealing to new adults.
African-Americans are even more opposed than Latinos to same-sex marriages, and their level of opposition has not changed in two decades.
Ann Coulter got pilloried over the over-the-top Edwards comment. The comment was a reference to an "African-American" actor who caused trouble for ABC network when using "faggot" disparagingly toward a co-star on-set and again in an on-screen denial at an awards show. That same actor was given an NAACP Image Award last week.
Support for same-sex marriage in California is stronger than in most other states because of the state's relatively young population, according to the authors.
Does age as a factor holds up across ethnic groups?
"Latinos are more likely to oppose same-sex marriage than non-Hispanic whites."
Isn't California's Latino population booming?
I think the biggest reason for any change is the way every new sitcom or television show always has some gay guy in it, and they always make that person funny and delightful. I think over time it sort of brainwashes people.
Your points are very well taken, but the problem is that the lawmakers in California, who are overall very left-leaning (including the RINO governor), can take the results of polls like this and claim that they have a "mandate from the people."
Likewise, there is similar brainwashing going on here in our schools WRT same-sex crap.
California Earthquake
Cass Elliot
I heard they exploded the underground blast
They say its gonna happen - gonna happen at last
That's the way it appears
They tell me the faultline runs right through here
So that maybe that may be
What's gonna happens gonna happen to me
They tell me the faultline runs right through here
Atlantis will rise, Sunset Boulevard will fall
Where the beach used to be won't be nothing at all
That's the way it appears
They tell me the faultline runs right through here
So that maybe that may be
What's gonna happen's gonna happen to me
They tell me the faultline runs right through here
Now, that's better.
That is deliberate. It is a major initiative of Big Homosexuality, the sum of politically-organized homosexual activists and advocates. It is carefully modulated. Every new show is vetted, producers and writers are vetted for "gay-friendliness". Gay political corruption of the entertainment infrastructure is nearly complete. Mel Gibson is a rare, rare exception.
Brainwashing in the public schools and popular media, combined with a timidity on the part of parents to teach their children a proper attitiude towards a perversion too disgusting to discuss in polite company.
Even Johnny Carson was a soldier in the far left march to the sea as he nightly attacked Anita Bryant when she first took a stand against an early openly homosexual teacher who was being used as a pry bar for sodomite acceptance.
The leftist comedy writers all ganged up to use the television as a change agent for making a mockery of morality and Christianity. They summarily destroyed Anita Bryant as the conservatives shuddered in the corner making excuses for their cowardice as in she was not perfect either.
Many conservatives just kept their heads in the sand and thought the true conservatives were overstating things.
The public school monopoly, the entertainment industry, the media, higher ed monopoly, all join together to brainwash and it worked, just like the true conservatives warned.
Each person will answer one day for voluntarily giving their children to an education system designed to turn their children away from God and toward the acceptance of outrageous abominations.
Were and are the tactics of the godless left shameful and lawless? Of course, but that is all the left knows. They are ruthless.
You hit the nail on the head. We are starting to see the "fruits" of the homosexual indroctination camps, also known as public schools. I pulled my children out of the public cesspool last year.
Christians who arent really Christians - kind of like conservatives who arent really conservatives - when its hard they walk away - distinguishing between good and evil is getting alot easier.
Great for you!
My two kids are doing the total immersion: not only in the public cesschool, but in a Massachusetts cesschool!!
If done without bias, the polls will be based on a random sample, not a target sample. And if done right, the sample can be projected to the entire population with a + or - % (bracket), and a confidence level (eg: 95%) that the true results would fall within that bracket.
2. Pollsters can target a certain group of people they know will give a certain response. 3. Questions can be structured to get a specific answer. 4. Pollsters can disregard responses with which they don't agree.
They can, but a professional polling company like Fields has no reason to falsify anything, thereby casting the entire organization under a blanket of fraud.
You can easily go to the web site and get the specifics of the poll to see if it was done scientifically.
Yes it is.
Having kids in the Massachusetts "cesschools" would qualify as a "clear and present danger." You owe it to your kids to save them from the danger, if at all possible.
By the way, did you coin the word cesschools? I like it. It's concise, accurate and catchy.
Hmmmm, there's something wrong with this...
Support for same-sex marriage in California has increased by nearly 50 percent in the past two decades, largely because of views held by a new younger generation of residents, successful brainwashing by the public schools, an analysis of Field polls during that period has found.
There, fixed it.
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