Quote:
Originally Posted by Levin
Support for gay marriage has gone up in every state, all 50, over the past ten years, with the fastest acceleration in the past 4 years.
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/m...arriage_a.html
Do you think that gay marriage will not be adopted in this country on a universal basis? |
And in that same timespan, 31 states have voted to ban gay marriage, some more than once.
Look, I don't argue with the notion that homosexuality is becoming normalized among many Americans (much to my chagrin). But whether that means all those states will universally cross the 50% line in actually supporting gay marriage legislation (or translate said support to votes at the ballot box) is something else entirely. Over at 538 where Nate Silver pegged the likelihood of gay marriage to pass at 71% in Maine, he wonders if there's a "Bradley Effect" going on, undermining the polls.
I don't know what the future holds, and maybe Americans will someday universally accept gay marriage, but legislative evidence of such a trend is a long way off. Even if the remaining 19 states ALL voted to recognize gay marriage today, you'd still have an extremely steep march up the rest of that hill. As it stands, the only states that offer gay marriage have done so via the legislature (which is legitimate, IMO) and judicial fiat (which is not). That doesn't bode well for the movement.