The poll found that 58% of the state's registered voters believe same-sex marriage should be legal, compared with 36% against, a margin of 22 points. When the same pollsters asked that question three years ago, 52% favored gay marriage and 40% opposed it, a 12-point spread.If Prop 8 is upheld and marriage ends up returning to the ballot in California, at least we have this as a starting point. For now.
Most national polls this year have found majority support, but only one of those surveys reported it as high as 58%. The average was roughly 51% in favor of gay marriage. As in the rest of the country, more women (63%) than men (52%) in California favor same-sex marriage.
Younger California voters also support gay marriage by larger margins than older voters, the poll found. Whereas 76% of voters ages 18 to 29 support legalizing the unions, only 52% of those ages 50 to 64 agree.
Still, the shifts among older voters are dramatic. Voters 65 and older are now almost evenly divided — 46% in favor, 47% against — compared with just three years ago, when seniors opposed gay marriage by 19 percentage points.
| Daily Buddhist Wisdom | |||
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Heaven
and hell are not some places I’m going to go to later on. Heaven and
hell are here right now, and I create them for myself with my own
choices.
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Pleasure
isn’t a place for you to stay. Pain isn’t a place for you to stay. Pain
wears away. Pleasure wears away. Our foremost Teacher said that all
fabrications are inconstant.
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In 1985, a Los Angeles Times survey found that 64% of the public said they would be “very upset” if their child told them he or she was gay or lesbian. By 2004, that number had fallen by almost half (33%). Since then, it has declined another 14 points, to 19%. Instead, a majority (55%) now says they would not be upset if they learned their child was gay or lesbian, a 19-point increase since 2004 and a 46-point increase since the mid-1980s. Again, this has been an across-the-board shift in attitudes.
Yet the change has been more dramatic among some groups than others. In 2004, fully 82% of those 65 and older said they would be upset if their child told them they were gay, and 50% said they’d be very upset. Today, only about half (47%) say they’d be upset and just 24% say they’d be very upset.Among Republicans, the percentage saying they’d be very upset if they learned their child was gay or lesbian also has fallen by half – from 44% to 22% – since 2004.
The verdict requires a change in the law and is a red rag to some in Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and its traditionally Catholic Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), who worry that conservative values are being diluted. The ruling was widely expected after the court in February overturned a ban on same-sex couples adopting a child already adopted by one of the partners. "The provisions set out in the income-tax law violate the general rule of equality," wrote the Karlsruhe-based court, adding the law should be changed retroactively from August 2001. Same-sex partnerships have been legal in Germany since 2001 but do not enjoy the same tax benefits as married heterosexuals.Openly gay Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle hailed the ruling, saying that the time has come "for German tax law to be as modern as its society." A spokesman for the Christian Social Union party denounced the news as an attack on the "sanctity of marriage." (Tipped by JMG reader Matthew)
More than half of Americans support allowing same-sex couples to marry, endorsing the goal of gay-rights activists as the U.S. Supreme Court this month prepares to rule on the issue for the first time. Fifty-two percent say they back giving gay couples the right to marry, compared with 41 percent who are opposed, according to a Bloomberg National Poll conducted May 31-June 3. Of those supporters, more than half -- 61 percent -- want a national law rather than a state-by-state approach. During arguments in March, the justices signaled a reluctance to declare a right to same-sex marriage nationwide.
This is what NOM is up against: a reality where even a majority of its own supporters know that marriage equality is going to happen, despite their driven efforts. This obvious inevitability is, far and away, the most damaging thing NOM faces—which is precisely why they are working so hard to deny it. They know that the writing on the wall demoralizes their support base and depresses their donations, so they are acting as if it's all a lie. They pretend the trajectory and polling is just something we've concocted rather than an accurate representation of where America stands. This Pew Poll shows them to be wrong. More importantly, it shows that even a majority of their own supporters know it.
| Daily Buddhist Wisdom | |||
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There
isn’t any such thing as a negative emotion. There are negative things
that we do with our emotions, but our emotions themselves are neither
negative nor positive.
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"Since those couples are inherently unable to accomplish the very thing that God intended for those who inhabited the ark – the procreation of the earth following His wrath for failing to follow His commandments." "Marriage is intrinsically the union of one man and one woman," Schubert said. "Government didn't create marriage, it merely recognizes what nature and nature's God created. Marriage was designed to bring men and women together because only those unions have the capacity to create new life.The Family Research Council's Peter Sprigg feels the same:
"The rainbow is God's symbol, not an LGBT symbol. It's particularly bizarre to use Noah's Ark," he said, noting that same-sex couples are incapable of natural reproduction, which is why same-sex is not included in the definition of marriage, and isn't recognized as marriage in most states.The artist and his partner will be among 25 couples that will take the C-Bus Of Love to Washington DC on June 21st for a marriage ceremony outside the Supreme Court. That angers Peter Sprigg, who claims that since prayers are forbidden on the steps of the Court because that would be considered a political protest, a same-sex wedding ceremony should also be banned. Sprigg: "They're definitely trying to influence public opinion, and I hope people see through it."
