Sure, one-third of Americans (or rather, American voters) want gays to be able to capital-M marry. But one-third wants you to only be able to have civil unions, while one third doesn’t want your relationships to have any legal standing at all. (Officially the breakdown is 34-31-33, according to Daily Kos’ commissioned questionnaires from Public Policy Polling.) You already know that younger people support full marriage rights in greater numbers than The Olds, and liberals over conservatives, but while 33 percent of white respondents favored marriage, a full 47 percent of Latinos did. So how about we speed up that whole “brown people are taking over America” thing Arizonan lawmakers are so worried about?
Dan
It depends on how the question is presented. Respondents are much more likely to favor marriage if civil unions aren’t mentioned and respondents are asked something like, “Should same-sex couples be allowed to marry?” The percent in favor approaches and sometimes exceeds 50%.
Adam
Confusing. I thought recent polls showed that slightly over half of all Americans favored marriage equality. Now it’s down to 1/3?
Anyway, the point is that it doesn’t matter what the voters want. Civil Rights aren’t for the majority to decide. The only way to produce change is through the courts.
Steve
@Adam
As said by Dan, it depends on the phrasing
If you just ask about marriage it’s 50ish percent. But if you offer lesser alternatives, the percentages shift towards that
Adam
@Steve: So then, really, only 1/3 of Americans actually favor full marriage for gays. And the rest would prefer we had second-class marriage-like status, or don’t want our relationships recognized at all. Wonderful.
Nate
In a few years us young people will make sure we gays get full mar age rights, ahhh the road ahead sure is looking colorful…until then this gray sure is getting old.
SteveMD2
the youth thing explains why scott lively who is behind the gay genocide bill in Uganda opened Holy Grounds – a coffee shop in Springfield, Massachusetts, of course the first state to leaglaize gay marriage.
And his mgr was recently identified as a “likely to repeat again” sex offender from NY. the ‘coffee shop” is located near a high school.
these creeps know that the kids are the largest supporters of gays. The coffee shop is an experiment that would be duplicated on a large scale to poison the children, if it seems to work out.
Eternal vigalence is the price of liberty. Have all of us done our part to help our various equality organizations?
The failure on the side of gay people, IMHO (I’m anything but humble actually – christian fascists is my new term for the freaks of the bible belt) is that much to many, probably as a result of the closet, are involved in advancing the cause of ending the last great discimination in America.
Are you doing your part – time, money, LTEs, etc etc.
jason
I wish these polls would use the term “gay civil marriage” rather than “gay marriage”. It is incorrect and misleading to call it “gay marriage” because it puts it on the same level of impression as church-blessed marriages for heterosexuals.
The polls need to change their terminology to “gay civil marriage” or “civil gay marriage”. I bet we get more saying yes than no. One wonder why the pollsters have thus far failed to add the adjective. Are they deliberately setting out to mislead the people?
Ronbo
Jason,
It’s called “framing” and it’s how the wealth and powerful control what we do and say. By now, you know that the media is bought-and-paid-for (hired and fired) by these same people. They control what is said just about everywhere from, the NYT, CBS, Radio, Print – everything you see on TV, Radio (even music – hear any anti-war anthems?) Everything but – not completely -this comments section. We will never change it – so we best change the subject. Wink, Wink. They are so old and set in their ways, that if we change the subject, chances are, they won’t understand we’ve changed the subject. In their learning curve is where we have a chance to set the agenda. So instead of talking gay civil marriage, we might speak of “equality in all civil rights” – sounds benign; but, gets us the goods.
Maybe … I don’t know. My generation just bestowed upon us then took away DADT. It’s been twenty years of bait and switch. Notice that the military is NOT allowing openly LGBT Americans into the military. If they can take 50 years to implement, they really get their way. Right?
PS – my spouse and I are legally “married” in Canada (together 26 years). We enter the “family” line when crossing the boarder INTO Canada; but, must enter the “individual” line when crossing back into America. We are being left behind the world as part of the new second-world (hey, not third-world … yet! Obama has not gone to work on Social Security …yet!)
Charlie
@jason: Not every religion is opposed to gay marriage. I attended my friends’ wedding ceremony and it was very much a religious one (neo-pagan). They have a marriage blessed by their Faith so no, there’s no reason to add the word “civil” to their marriage.
DR
@jason:
Because “marriage” is “marriage” when the state does it. Just because it’s a sacrament in many religious traditions does not make it any less of a state-regulated function.
Additionally, there are differences between how “marriage” is perceived, especially, as this poll shows us, when compared to “marriage”. People see them differently. Case in point, when offered the opportunity to choose between “marriage” or “civil unions”, there’s a very obvious split, but when given the opportunity to choose between “marriage” or “nothing”, the numbers change; some who support civil unions will vote “yes” for marriage while others will vote “no”.
Polls have to be very clear in the questions they ask or they are useless.
Syl
@Adam: Stop being a negative Nancy! 60% of the country wants us to have more rights than we currently do. The segment that doesn’t want us having rights is graying and demographically declining. This is good news.
Adam
@Syl: But the majority thinks we are still not equal in their eyes. That’s the bottom line.
Francis
The stats are misleading a bit. If you ask point blank “should same-sex couples be allowed marriage”, or “do you support same-sex marriage”, the numbers have been roughly 50-50 the past year. What these stats show is that………..20% of people who support same-sex marriage, actually support civil unions on a greater level. They are for same-sex marriage, but prefer it if the word wasn’t marriage. So it’s sort of a hollow support.
The youngsters are truly for same-sex marriage but the bottom line is, people over the age of about 32-34 are generally anti-gay, and they are the ones in power of the country. So, the numbers will never be much higher than around 50-50 until these individuals essentially die off and we begin seeing the younger generation taking over.