Gay Marriage Gaining Momentum

Maggie Gallagher, Brian Brown, Victoria Cobb, Tony Perkins and other anti-gay hate merchants like them must be rending their garments after last Tuesday's election results.  Adding to their weeping an wailing will be new poll results from Pew Research Center show opposition to same sex marriage dropping markedly.  Indeed, nationwide the push for marriage equality is close to gaining majority support nationwide.   The lone hold out region of reactionary opposition?   The South - that same region that boasts the lowest levels of education and the highest levels of racism while pretending to wrap itself in false religiosity.  Or at least false religiosity if one takes the Gospel message seriously.  The other interesting finding is that despite the efforts of the National Organization for Marriage, support for gay marriage among blacks has increased markedly.  Here are highlights of the polls findings:

Across four Pew Research Center surveys this year, 48% of Americans say they favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally, while 43% are opposed. Just four years ago, in the 2008 election cycle, 51% opposed making same-sex marriages legal and 39% supported it.

The steep recent trend has continued over the course of 2012. The most recent survey, conducted just two weeks before the election, found nearly half (49%) in favor of allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally, while opposition had fallen to an all-time low of 40%. The tipping balance of American public opinion was confirmed in this week’s national election exit polling: 49% of voters said their state should legally recognize same-sex marriage; 46% said it should not.

[O]n Election Day 2012, ballot measures legalizing same sex marriage were approved in Maine, Maryland and Washington State. In Minnesota, which already prohibits same-sex marriage, voters rejected a bid to add that prohibition to the state’s constitution.

A look at different regions of the country finds wide disparities in attitudes about same-sex marriage. The states that approved measures this week are all in regions generally supportive of allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally. Other parts of the country are not as supportive.

The trend toward increased support for gay marriage is evident across all regions. In each, the percentage that currently favors allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally is far higher than it was a decade ago.  Attitudes toward gay marriage in the South are comparable to where the country as a whole was a decade ago.

One of the striking results in the 2012 exit polls was the support for legalizing gay marriage among black voters. In the national exit poll interviewing conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the NEP, black voters favored their state legally recognizing same-sex marriage by a 51% to 41% margin, while among whites, 47% favored and 49% opposed this idea.

The 2012 exit poll also found more Hispanic voters (59%) supporting gay marriage in their state than opposing it (32%). This also comports with the latest trends in Pew Research Center surveys of Hispanics nationwide. In the 2012 National Survey of Latinos conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center, 52% of Hispanics were in favor of allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally, while 34% were opposed.

The conclusion to be drawn?  That the Christofascists and the Roman Catholic Church are losing the so-called culture wars.  Next they need to be condemned to the political wilderness where they belong.