Gay marriages just a matter of time
Scitt Milfred of the Wisconsin State Journal appears to be on to something:
The big news Friday was that courts refused to legalize gay marriage in Georgia and New York.
So much for "activist judges."
The more significant thing about Friday's news was a simple statistic: 51 percent.
That's the percentage of respondents ages 18 to 39 who said in a national Gallup poll they support legalizing gay marriage...
... I guarantee you that support for gay marriage among the younger generations of Americans is only going to increase.
And eventually this narrow majority of support for gay marriage will become an overwhelming majority among the young. And people like me will increase support among the old folks, too.
It's a given. It's a done deal.
It's why, before too long, gays and lesbians will marry throughout the United States.
There's nothing the opponents of gay marriage can do to stop this from happening. All they can hope for -- and they certainly are hoping and fighting hard for this -- is that it will be later than sooner.
But it is absolutely going to happen.
I have no doubt at all that younger people, in Wisconsin and across the country, are more tolerant of other lifestyles. And the children of those people who are now 18-39 also will be likely to grow up supporting gay marriage, because they learned tolerance from their parents.
The times they are a changin' -- just not fast enough.
UPDATE: I just edited this and deleted a paragraph that incorrectly said a WisPolitics poll found young people against gay marriage. I misread the release; it said young people are against the amendment, which makes sense. Thanks to Doris's comment, I have that straight now.
UPDATE 2: Paul Soglin: Amendment backfiring on the right.
posted by xoff @ 9:05 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
The WisPolitics poll showed that young Wisconsinites oppose the civil unions and marriage BAN -- not that they oppose marriage for gay couples. (Though, of course, because of the ban's second sentence the two can go hand in hand.)
"Lifestyles" is a funny word to describe lesbian and gay people. What does it mean?
I was not only referring to gays and lesbians, but to the fact that young people are more tolerant of a lot of behaviors that older people condemn.
Here's what Wikipedia says lifestyle means:
In sociology, a lifestyle is the way a person (or a group) lives. This includes patterns of social relations, consumption, entertainment, and dress. A lifestyle typically also reflects an individual's attitudes, values or worldview.
Having a specific "lifestyle" implies a conscious or unconscious choice between one set of behaviours and some other sets of behaviours.
Got it! Thanks...
Sorry if I sounded prickly. "Lifestyle" can be such a Julaine Appling kind of word, one that frequently works to make gay couples seem alien: i.e., someone with an "alternative lifestyle" is someone utterly different from "the rest of us."
I think young people witness their lesbian and gay peers at a much earlier age that we older folks did. As gay people find social acceptance earlier, their sexual orientation ceases to become the basis for actual difference from the so-called mainstream. And as young folks become more used to gay people as part of their day-to-day lives, sexual orientation ceases to become the basis for perceived difference as well.
Wishful thinking lefties but here's a tid bit from CBS news website just today which rebuffs the notion that gay marriage will be legal in the future.
Direct from the CBS News website "(CBS) Despite last month’s Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that the state could not deny gays and lesbians the right to marry, Americans continue to oppose laws allowing homosexual couples to marry or to form civil unions -- and the number opposing gay marriage is higher now than it was in July before the Massachusetts action.
Some 61 percent of respondents in a CBS News/New York Times poll said they were against gay marriage, up from 55 percent in July, and only 34 percent said they favor gay marriage, down from 40 percent five months ago.
The public has reversed itself on the overall question of same-sex relations. Half now think homosexual relations between consenting adults should not be legal -- a reversal of opinion from the summer, when a majority of Americans thought they should be legal.
More than half now favor an amendment to the U.S. Constitution defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.
At 49 percent, the percentage that thinks homosexual relations should not be legal is the highest recorded since the CBS News/New York Times Poll started asking the question in 1992. As recently as July, 54 percent thought such relations should be legal, while 39 percent thought they should not. Now, 41 percent think homosexual relations should be legal."
In 2004 11 states had Gay marriage bans, all passed easily. Again this shows how out of step you people are with world.
I would rather be out of step with the world than a Bible-thumping homophobe. How can you defend making marriage between only a man and a woman when over 50% of them end in divorce...not exactly a sacred institution. And, honestly, why in the hell do you care? Oh that's right...all you right wing hacks want less government intervention in our lives, unless it involves morality issues dealing with anyone not straight, white and male. You are a repulsive bunch.
And then you wonder why the Muslims hate us so much. It's because of you Queer loving kind that is spreading you idealogy into to the public on TV, in public schools. Gay marriage is repulsive.
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