Posted on 08/22/2011 7:36:31 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
One of the few issues on which opinion has moved left over the last few years is same-sex marriage. In 1996, Gallup found that Americans opposed it by a 68 percent to 27 percent margin. Last May, Gallup found Americans in favor by 53 percent to 45 percent. That’s a huge change in 15 years.
Other polls have shown similar movement. Pew Research reported last week that 45 percent favored same-sex marriage and 46 percent were opposed — a dead heat. Pew polls in 2008 and 2009 found only 35 percent to 40 percent in favor.
This is an issue on which the differences between age groups are as large as any I can remember. In the May Gallup poll, 70 percent of those under age 35 favored same-sex marriage. Only 39 percent of those over 55 agreed.
So while opinion on one controversial cultural issue, abortion, has not changed much, opinion on same-sex marriage has changed vastly.
Why? One reason is probably that as people learn that friends and relatives are gay, they become more sympathetic to gay rights. We see a similar change in voters’ willingness to elect openly gay candidates to Congress and other offices.
But increasing support for same-sex marriage causes problems for politicians. When two-thirds of voters were opposed, it didn’t: Almost everyone opposed it. Possible exception: Barack Obama, running for state senate in a university-dominated district in 1996.
As a candidate for U.S. senator and president, Obama said he opposed same-sex marriage. As president, he says he still does, but his opinion is “evolving.”
This may reflect a split between Democratic core constituencies. Affluent liberals overwhelmingly favor same-sex marriage. But most black voters are opposed.
In a 2008 referendum in California, 70 percent of blacks voted against same-sex marriage. A same-sex-marriage bill was defeated this year in Maryland after black Democratic legislators opposed it. Same-sex marriage would be legal in California and Maryland were it not for opposition by black voters.
Mainstream media reporters pepper Republican presidential candidates with questions about the issue but seldom ask Obama about it. But if it’s a fair question for Republicans, it’s a fair question for Democrats, as well.
The problem for Republican politicians is not that opposition to same-sex marriage antagonizes gay voters. According to exit polls in the last three presidential elections, gays and lesbians made up just 3 percent of the electorate, and they were one of the few groups that voted for John McCain in 2008 in larger numbers than had voted for George W. Bush in 2004.
The Republicans’ problem is young voters. Huge majorities of them favor same-sex marriage, and for most of them it’s simply a no-brainer. They must have been turned off if they were watching the Republican presidential candidates vie with each other in opposing it in the Fox News/Washington Examiner debate in Iowa.
The constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage that they supported is never going to get a two-thirds vote in Congress or be ratified by three-quarters of state legislatures. Unless the Supreme Court rules there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, this is an issue that is going to be decided by the states.
Opponents of same-sex marriage argue that it would weaken the institution of the family. Certainly there are problems there: Rising percentages of children are raised by one parent or none, and nearly 50 percent of teenage children in non-college households did not live with both parents. Yet outcomes for children raised in two-parent families are far better than for those who are not.
But as one who favors same-sex marriage for reasons set out in Jonathan Rauch’s 2004 book Gay Marriage, I think the institution of the family is less threatened by a few people who want to get married than by the very many more people who get divorced or who have children without getting married at all.
In any case, we now have an experiment going on. Some 11 percent of Americans live in the six states and the District of Columbia that allow same-sex marriage. That would rise to 23 percent if California voters, who narrowly rejected it, switch. Other states may follow. On the other hand, states where blacks and white evangelical Protestants form a majority are unlikely to accept it any time soon.
We will be able to see how things work out and make judgments, without much need for guidance from our presidents or presidential candidates.
— Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner
Really? I had a childhood friend who in his 40's "came out." Left his wife and two kids, to shack up with his "boyfriend." 5 years later and he is on "partner" number 4 or 5 and acts like an total ass, some suspect he is on drugs, etc....
So he ruined his family and his life. I definitely became LESS sympathetic.
Barone is drinking the purple Kool Aid from the fag lobby.
Call their bluff and put it to a vote. all 31 of 31 states that held referendum and let the people decide soundly rejected perverted marriage, even the uber-liberal progressive peoples socialist utopia of California, twice! That’s why they need liberal legislators and activist liberal judges to foist the issue onto the public. Not to mention propaganda polls like the one that’s posted here..
you make a great point; to a liberal pollster, people want to seem open minded and they support gay marriage — but in the privacy of the voting booth in a referendum — it’s HELL NO. VERY GOOD POINT.
In NY hard to place black boys are now being adopted by "married" gay white dads. Someday the boys will write poetry like Barky:
Pop takes another shot, neat,
Points out the same amber
Stain on his shorts that I’ve got on mine, and
Makes me smell his smell, coming
From me;
By Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.
Yes, people do not know what “gay” sex entails. Maybe we should insist on calling it pan-sexuality because anything goes. And those who practice it are descending into a hell of their own making, dragging down the whole society. The most tragic victims are the vulnerable children of their own families, impressionable younger siblings, abandoned spouses, and the youngsters they entrap in their deadly lifestyle.
You aren’t going to like what I have to say, but it is our fault. While we have been coming up with thoughtful analysis of the issue our children have been brainwashed with slogans repeated over and over in school and the media.
Think about it. How many people order a Coke because they have done an analysis of the ingredients and how many order it because “it’s the real thing” and “things go better with coke”?
"It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?"-- George Washington, Farewell Address
Agreed. But that’s been the goal of feminazism all along. To utterly destroy all male and female distinctives. I wouldn’t be surprised if they criminalize Father’s Day and Mother’s Day eventually.
Spot on. We had to deal with this "people should be free to marry whoever they want to" BS from our kids when we had to put them in government schools due to financial problems.
When they say that to you, do you ever say back “Then people should be free to marry their brother or sister? If not, then why not?”
One of the things that held this up in the 1980s and 1990s was the spread of HIV and Aid’s symptoms. I remember liberals joining gays in blaming Reagan and Pat Robertson for them giving each other Aids. Seeing gays killing themselves and blaming others was a huge turnoff for most.
But HIV drugs and the MSM and public schools and many gay oriented childrens TV shows have changed the political landscape on this, as all we hear about it is those ‘Same Sex partners just wanting to be happy like us’ stories on the news.
What tells me we lost on this? That FNC (Republican party TV) is not willing to get involved with issues like opposing DADT repeal. That is a bad sign because they are the key to anti-Democrat voters.
Too bad Barone feels this way. He is usually right about so many things.
But he's so wrong here. The institution of the heterosexual marriage IS indeed very threatened and affected by gay marriage.
As general codes of masculinity erode, the heterosexual male loses his ability and the dedication necessary to be a strong husband and father. Homosexual propoganda speeds the process.
In other words, getting rid of gay activism and propoganda (and hopefully replacing it with positive messages about heterosexuality) would indeed strengthen the institution of the traditional family. Men need positive messages to succeed in marriage, not the negative garbage we get 24/7. Sexual license which erupted in the 60's has led us down the path to its inevitable end...acceptance of homosexuality. The whole movement of "free love", which of course includes homosexuality, destroys true family.
Barone...get with it!
Don't forget that states like Iowa were a victim of judicial activism. And NY accepted it AGAINST the voters' wishes.
I'm not sure if any State's referendum has succeeded. Even very liberal Hawaii has rejected gay marriage via referendum.
We had a Speaker of the House from San Francisco. This is what has caused the recent uptick in gay activism IMO. The gays feel empowered. But when the truth gets out that they are only 3% of the population, (and I think a few very sordid, high-profile gay scandals will hit the headlines before this is all over) I think the public is going to reverse course on this issue and stand against any further progress by the gay lobby. Can't come soon enough.
No, although I probably should have. What I did say is to remind them of what the Bible says about homosexuality (they were brought up in church), then when they objected to say to them, "Hey, if you've a problem with that take it up with Him, I'm just the messenger."
Correlation?
Of course, especially considering ALL of the mainline/largest denominations, along with many of the "Emergant" Churches favor homosexual "rights."
Oddly enough too, as homosexual rights, and religious freedom CANNOT COEXIST.
That’s a good and true response. What I do not understand is how anyone who thinks marriage should be legally redefined from male/female to “gender-neutral” should have any problem with consensual incestuous and polygamous marriages.
It's just his personal opinion, not his political analysis, which is why I read him.
All of the cultural marxism since the 1960s is really taking a toll on the young.
Which is the whole point.
"Gay marriage" </cant> has never been about marriage, it's always been about destroying marriage and the fact that it points powerfully, and with society's heavy sanction, toward the normality of heterosexual unions, which homosexuals hate because it throws in high relief their deviancy and perversion.
Gays hate marriage, they hate its indictment of homosexuality, and they have said so repeatedly in their lounges. Time to take them at their word and fight back.
Homosex is unnatural, perverted, and foul, and it undermines society.
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