New Poll Shows Dramatic Rise In Support for Gay Marriage

More bad news for the Christofascists and proponents of DOMA and Proposition 8: a new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows support for gay marriage now hitting 58%.  While polls are in no way binding on how the U. S. Supreme Court may rule in  United States v. Windsor  (Docket 12-307), which challenges the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), and Hollingsworth v. Perry (Docket 12-144), which challenges the constitutionality of California’s Proposition , the Court does not exist in a vacuum and increased support for gay marriage could help tip justices sitting on the fence to rule with the gay supportive justices inclined to strike down both DOMA and proposition 8.  I suspect the folks at NOM, FRC, The Family Foundation and similar virulently anti-gay organizations are not jumping with joy over the new polling results.  Here are highlights from ABC News:

Support for gay marriage reached a new high in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, marking a dramatic change in public attitudes on the subject across the past decade. Fifty-eight percent of Americans now say it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to wed.

That number has grown sharply in ABC News/Washington Post polls, from a low of 32 percent in a 2004 survey of registered voters, advancing to a narrow majority for the first time only two years ago, and now up again to a significant majority for the first time.(See PDF with full results, charts and tables here.)

Most Americans, moreover, say the U.S. Constitution should trump state laws on gay marriage, a question now before the U.S. Supreme Court. And – in another fundamental shift – just 24 percent now see homosexuality as a choice, down from 40 percent nearly 20 years ago. It’s a view that closely relates to opinions on the legality of same-sex marriage.

Support for gay marriage, though, has gone from 47 percent to today’s 58 percent in just the last three years – culminating a period of change first endorsed by some state courts, then by some political figures, notably with Hillary Clinton expressing support for same-sex marriage today, and Barack Obama doing the same last May, a position he went on to underscore in his second inaugural address in January.

Sharp differences across groups remain, but there have been large advances across the board. In one striking gap, gay marriage is supported by a vast 81 percent of adults younger than 30, compared with just 44 percent of seniors. But that’s up by more than 10 points in both groups just since March 2011, and by more than 20 points in both groups since 2004, the low point for gay marriage support in ABC/Post polls.

Among the declining number of people who see homosexuality as a choice, just 29 percent support gay marriage, with nearly seven in 10 opposed. Among those who reject this view, support for same-sex marriage soars to 73 percent.

The Christofascists and snake oil merchants of the "ex-gay" ministries are clearly losing the battle of public opinion.  Meanwhile, I can only ponder how much aid might have been given to the poor and hungry war if the Christofascists had heeded the Gospel message rather than squandered millions marketing hate and denigrating gay citizens.