Wahoo! It is astounding how things are progressing. Sure, there are quite a few bumps in the road ahead, but this is very encouraging news indeed. And how cool that this poll shows that more people support marriage equality than oppose it.
Changing Views on Gay Marriage, Gun Control, Immigration and Legalizing Marijuana
ABC News-Washington Post Poll: 49 Percent Support Gay Marriage, New High
ANALYSIS By GARY LANGER
April 30, 2009—
Support for gay marriage, legalizing illegal immigrants and decriminalizing marijuana all are at new highs. Three-quarters of Americans favor federal regulation of greenhouse gases. Two-thirds support establishing relations with Cuba.
But hold tight.
If some views that may be perceived as liberal are ascendant, so are some conservative ones: Opposition to gun control is also at a new high in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll. There’s continued broad support for tighter border controls. And contrary to President Obama, half of Americans wouldn’t flatly rule out torturing terrorism suspects.
Click here for a PDF with charts and questionnaire.
It’s a country, in short, in which no fixed ideological orthodoxy holds sway, and attitudes on hot-button issues can and do shift over time, sometimes in surprising ways.
Take gay marriage, legal in Massachusetts, Connecticut and now Iowa, with Vermont coming aboard in September. At its low, in 2004, just 32 percent of Americans favored gay marriage, with 62 percent opposed. Now 49 percent support it versus 46 percent opposed — the first time in ABC/Post polls that supporters have outnumbered opponents.
More than half, moreover — 53 percent — say gay marriages held legally in another state should be recognized as legal in their states.
The surprise is that the shift has occurred across ideological groups. While conservatives are least apt to favor gay marriage, they’ve gone from 10 percent support in 2004 to 19 percent in 2006 and 30 percent now — overall a 20-point, threefold increase, alongside a 13-point gain among liberals and 14 points among moderates. (Politically, support for gay marriage has risen sharply among Democrats and independents alike, while far more slightly among Republicans.)
Poll: Increased Support for Gay Marriage
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