Though gay marriage remains a divisive issue, with 51 percent opposing it, a new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found. But almost two-thirds, 63 percent, opposed gay marriage in 2004 when many ballot iniatives passed in several states banning gay marriage and the issue helped mobilize conservative voters to the polls.
The number of people who say they strongly oppose gay marriage has dropped from 42 percent in early 2004 to 28 percent now. Strong opposition has dropped sharply among senior citizens and Republicans.
People are now evenly split on allowing adoptions by gay couples and six in 10 now favor allowing gays to serve openly in the military.
The last bit is especially good, as we desperately need to can our idiotic "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
5 comments:
So what's the driving force behind this? Rarely does social enlightenment happen naturally and peacefully, so what is making people realize that this is the better course of action?
It's not. It's the dying down of a backlash from last year with the Massachusetters ruling, San Francisco mayor, etc.
Well then that raises the question of whether this is even a positive development or not. If "backlash" can be provoked by gays merely daring to assert the right to marry in fairly limited locations geographically, prompting large and populous states to flat out ban it, what prgoress is being made?
Well, rightly or wrongly, gay marriage was thrusted quickly onto people by the Massachusetts ruling and Gavin Newson's actions, etc. Again, rightly or wrongly, many felt that it was being forced onto them. Combine that with people's fear of it and you have a pretty dangerous combination. But this at least suggests a more moderate strategy by same-sex marriage activists could bring opposition significantly down. I mean, 51% is just barely a majority.
Well what I was saying is that when you had 75% of people vote anti-gay but now only 51% of people are against gay marriage, what happened? Did they sit back and realize they don't actually care?
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