The Washington Post/ABC Poll was the first poll in US history to indicate a majority support for same-sex marriage. More Americans support marriage equality (49%) than oppose it (46%). Other polls released this week indicate a similar shift in public opinion. The Republican party has taken notice as well. There was a 20 point shift towards equality in their own party. McCain’s campaign manager recently told Republicans they should change their policy towards same sex marriage. Democrats are posturing to use this new data towards their advantage. They have traditionally supported civil rights for gays and lesbians.
There is an old phrase in Iowa during the Presidential caucus season, “So goes Iowa, so goes the nation.” Having marriage equality in Iowa has shifted the focus of the gay rights movement from merely a coastal fight to a civil rights fight that is rooted in America’s heartland. When Massachusetts legalized same sex marriage merely three years ago, the country backlashed with 30 state constitutional amendments limiting equality to all their citizens, notably gays and lesbians. It is clear Americans are warming up to gays and lesbians and the fear tactic strategy no longer works.
Furthermore, I do not think we should underestimate the psychological effect of California’s Proposition 8 on the rest of the country. For the first time in American history, rights were taken away from Americans. Until Propositio 8, rights were denied gays and lesbians that they never had to begin with, but to take away rights was something new entirely. Clearly it did not settle well when rights people once had were stripped away. The sorrow and outrage on gays and lesbians faces recieved international news coverage, but more intimately people experienced the pain of their coworkers, friends, families, and neighbors in every city, in every neighborhood. The entire world saw that pain. Most importantly prop 8 generated millions of conversations about LGBT rights and what is at stake. It is possible, that proposition 8 was the best thing to happen to LGBT Americans in a generation.
According to the poll, 53% of Americans now believe same sex marriages from other states should be recognized in their state. Opposing equality is a losing argument. Politicians that plan to win the hearts and minds of the new generation of voters need to abandon their old discriminatory practices. They should support equality or they should plan to lose. At the very least, they can take my mother’s advice, “If they don’t have anything nice to say, they should not say anything at all.”
Click here for a pdf version of the questions and the poll results.
