Marriage is so Gay

                                                                     

Noah Rothman wrote on Hotair.com that the fight for gay marriage is over. He comes to that conclusion by comparing opinion polls from the most conservative of republicans and states. I don’t think is over until the plumb lady sings but the fight is won all we need is the seal of approval from the Supreme Court. 

 Fortunately for the stability of the republic, the United States Supreme Court’s justices do not take public opinion into account when deciding the cases before them. At least, they’re not supposed to keep public opinion in mind. 

But if they did, there wouldn’t be any question about how the Supreme Court will decide on the issue of same-sex marriage rights when they are likely to issue a ruling on the matter this summer. According to a new CNN/ORC survey, a staggering 63 percent of all Americans now say that gays and lesbians should have a constitutional right to a legal marriage with their partners. 

That’s an increase of 14 points from the summer of 2010 when just 49 percent said the same. In 2010, a narrow majority disagreed that same-sex marriage should be a constitutional right. Today, only 36 percent disagree with that statement. 

Among subgroups, a majority of just about everyone – even those aged 65 or over – back the right of same-sex couples to wed. Only among self-described Republicans and those who consider themselves conservative was the notion of extending the constitutional right to marry to gay couples unpopular. But while a majority of both these groups of voters still disapprove of gay marriage rights, 42 percent of Republican respondents and 43 percent of conservative respondents said they backed extending legal marriage rights to gay couples. 

That’s not the only surprising news on the polling front that indicates even cultural conservatives are warming to the right of gay couples to get married. 

The release of a variety of polls of Republican voters in early primary states via NBC News/Marist University this week suggested that even the GOP knows that the writing is on the wall. Only a narrow majority of Republican primary voters in Iowa said it was still acceptable for a Republican presidential candidate to oppose gay marriage. 47 percent of Hawkeye State voters disagreed. In New Hampshire and South Carolina, a majority of primary voters said that opposition to gay marriage was no longer an acceptable view for a prospective presidential candidate to hold. 

“And while the numbers are surprising, they make some sense,” The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake observed. “A Pew poll conducted in March 2014 showed 39 percent of Republicans and Republican leaners supported gay marriage. Add the passage of time and the fact that non-Republicans can vote in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and you’ve got a potentially less anti-gay marriage electorate come next year.”

Blake did offer a few caveats:

But it’s also pretty clear from this and other polls that there are a growing number of Republicans who support gay marriage. So does it all mean we’ll see a GOP presidential candidate in 2016 come out in support of gay marriage? Probably not. While there are some supporters of immigration reform (see: Bush and Marco Rubio) and Common Core (Bush) in the group, the name of the game is alienating as few people as possible.

You also have to wonder just how much of a deal-breaker gay marriage support is. The poll asked about opposition to gay marriage — not support — so it’s a little harder to suss out just how many people would vote against a candidate who supports gay marriage. We’re guessing it’s still more of a voting issue for those who oppose gay marriage than those who support it — at least on the GOP side. (For what it’s worth, though, between 25 and 31 percent of likely GOP voters in each state say opposing gay marriage is “totally unacceptable” — a number that is on-par with all of these other issues.)

That’s a fair point. Not opposing gay marriage is not the same thing as supporting it, but this latest CNN survey indicates that positive support for the right of gay marriage is also on the rise. At least, it is nationally. When even those political figures who support conservatives, like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), are proposing (too late) to get the federal government out of the marriage business rather than to oppose gay marriage via the constitutional amendment process, it is safe to assume that support for same-sex marriage is no longer controversial. That fight is over.