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.

[Conscience of a Conservative]

There is no where in this country where this issue has won a referendum-

You're about 2 years late on that one...

[a fool in paradise]

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

Apparently you have to be schooled in the "new morality" that says bug chasing and bath house sex are "the new normal".

[DemforBush]

“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. ....The stark divide between well-educated and less-educated areas is perhaps most clearly illustrated in North Carolina.”

Well that’s certainly a smarmy, smug, thoroughly elitist thing to write. What a derpwad.

[a fool in paradise]

The “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” argument is being made in the Texas supreme court case on same sex marriage. Except in Texas it isn’t about love, it’s about two lesbians who ‘married’ in another state seeking Texas recognition of their marriage purely for the sake of a divorce.

[SkyDancer]

Yeah, read about that ...

[backwoods-engineer]

A country that has descended to such depths of degeneracy, where its government legally and culturally equates two perverted homos as being the same as a husband-and-wife, is no longer a republic I’d hold any particular interest in preserving.

Could not agree more. I'd much rather call myself an Alabamian than an American, given the depravity of the latter.

God's judgement will come on America. I think he knows where His people are, and where they aren't, and He will preserve His remnant.

[Boogieman]

What they really mean is “well-indoctrinated”.

[SoFloFreeper]

Public opinion surveys show that a majority of adults — and a growing one — now supports same-sex marriage.

Last time I looked, the support had leveled off and was being trimmed back a bit.

Gay Marriage Support Falling (from September of 2014)

So...while the evil one may be winning in courts, he is not winning in the end.

Isaiah 5:20 applies.

[madprof98]

Pelosi likes to point to “Life . . . "

Well, she is a pro-life Catholic, after all.

[aposiopetic]

more culturally conservative native Southerners

The targets of the 0-care death panels, to be disappeared like the Gallup CEO.

[pastorbillrandles]

really? Where?

[EternalVigilance]

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”

— Isaiah 5:20

[infowarrior]

support in well-educated metropolitan areas, like Seattle, Washington, Minneapolis and Raleigh, N.C.

Not my idea of well educated metropolitan areas. Liberal cesspools is more like it.

What Mr Cohn asserts is 'well educated' is in actuality merely 'well indoctrinated.' I, for one, do *NOT* care wherever it was they went to receive "Marxism 101", nor do I particularly care how long it took them to achieve said indoctrination. They are not 'educated' at all, despite their hubris, merely brainwashed...

the infowarrior

[Ulmius]

well-educated metropolitan areas, like Seattle, Washington, Minneapolis and Raleigh, N.C MMMM, is the bias smacking in this article... Look, if a broad walk of life (even those "ignorant rednecks" down in Alabama) views something like gay marriage as immoral to their lifestyle, and there is a majority of them that are not causing gays direct harm or impeding their lifestyle as private citizens, they have a right to block gay marriage from their state if they don't want it. There's other states around Alabama where they can go. And if getting the legal or tax benefits that a normal couple can get without special circumstances in a state like Alabama is an issue to them, they can go to their lawyers and interest groups as American citizens have a right to do to settle the matter in court or raise peaceful awareness among society, if that society is receptive, to change the issue on a local level. It is not a federal issue, but the states' and the peoples' issue, according to the Constitution. As a former Alabamian, I have seen few people treat gays there badly or persecute them, at least where I lived. There are good, wholesome rural people in the countryside where having some sweet tea with on their porch is quite a wonderful and memorable activity, so it peeves me when these leftists try to stereotype them; they just have a different set of morals. Such hypocrites.

[GenXteacher]

Amen.

[JSDude1]

The byline of this article is: “You hick unjukated conservtive rednecks won’t support gay marriage”.

We smart progressive city dweller do.

The fact is there are just as many low info people in cities as in rural areas.

[MacNaughton]

5 Alabama needs to secede from the Union....... again.

And what are you going to do in CA? Let La Raza lead a secession to rejoin Mexico?

The Deep Southern states have black populations of ~35 % and the illegal Hispanic creeping tide is steadily rising. We are on our Last Stand Hill with 2 more years of BHO to go. Our younger generations are as brainwashed with PC/multi-culturalism/white privilege in the public schools, universities, and churches as anywhere else in the U.S. We have a milktoast GOP governor, in his 70's, who is not about to take a confrontational stand on anything. Sadly, our state attorney general and chief justice just don't have anyone to back them to stand against the Fed.

[Ben Mugged]

You have an ally in this issue in Alabama you have not considered. In California blacks overwhelmingly voted against same sex marriage much to the surprise of liberals. The same metric applies in Alabama. Black Americans as a demographic do not support same sex marriage.

[turducken]

Amazing that there is a state that retains some common decency

My home state has become such a moral cesspool - maybe I need to start looking at relocating.

[MacNaughton]

38 You have an ally in this issue in Alabama you have not considered. In California blacks overwhelmingly voted against same sex marriage much to the surprise of liberals. The same metric applies in Alabama. Black Americans as a demographic do not support same sex marriage.

That is a red herring. Blacks are little influenced by churches any more, unless it is the steady drum beat of civil rights/social justice/reparations. BHO's race trumps everything in the black community.