Pre-SCOTUS Poll: 55% Support Same-Sex Marriage
A poll released before the Supreme Court handed down its decisions today regarding DOMA and Proposition 8 shows that an increasingly solid majority of Americans support same-sex marriage:
A majority of Americans say they support same-sex marriage, according to a new poll released hours before the Supreme Court’s historic decision on a pair of cases involving gay rights.
According to the survey from CNN and ORC, 55 percent of Americans say they support allowing homosexuals to marry one another, while 44 percent disagree. That’s up 11 percentage points from the beginning of President Obama’s time in office.
The survey also found that six in 10 Americans believe the federal government should recognize same-sex marriages performed in the states that already permit gay marriage. Of those surveyed, 39 percent say they back the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from doing so.
This is consistent with other polling that we’ve seen over the past year or so indicating that support for marriage equality is now the majority position in the United States, and that it seems to be holding up solidly rather than simply being something ephemeral captured in only a couple polls. This is evidence of a real sea change on a social issue, and one that has occurred over a very short period of time. It wasn’t that long ago, remember, that large majorities of Americans opposed same-sex marriage and initiatives to ban were passing quite easily. That’s no longer the case, and it’s unlikely to change back in the other direction.
What will be interesting to see, of course, will be to see what impact today’s ruling have on the polls.
I expect there will be a healthy bump in favor of SSM. What would be more interesting to me is the where of the movement. Are anti -SSM attitudes softening in the South? ( I expect not.)
I’m betting the map of political acceptance will look a lot like the famous Jesusland map, with Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico shifting over to blue. I expect that in the Blue States we’ll see political moves to amend state laws and constitutions to allow SSM . Unfortunately, I don’t think our home state of Virginia will be one of those states.
If the map does go that way, I’m interested to see if predictions come true for a LBGT brain drain from the red states to blue.
@Gold Star for Robot Boy: A couple of decades ago the Mormon Church controlled the State of Utah and it was practically a theocracy. Very hard to get alcoholic beverages and few if any night clubs. The economy was faltering – little investment because of the difficulty in attracting the educated and talented professionals necessary to have a high tech industry. The church backed off. We will see if the same thing happens in the Bible belt over time.
The people who support gay marriage are those who are open minded and live in the real world of change. The younger people just don’t understand all the fuss over it and although I’m not in that ‘young’ category I definitely agree with them. Not all who marry even in a heterosexual relationship marry just to have children. For some unknown reason many people think that’s is a woman’s sole reason to marry just to have children. They are wrong. People marry because they love that person, whether they are of the same sex or not. It’s NOT all about having children. I’m glad to see that things are changing and unfortunately those who oppose it, they will just have to learn to live with it.
@Caj:
I agree. It should be pointed out, however, that even gay couples can have children–whether through adoption, through previous relationships, or through artificial insemination. Some people need to get used to the fact that there aren’t just same-sex marriages, there are entire families composed of same-sex couples and their children–which itself is a big reason why the marriages should be legally recognized.