Recent Polls Show Majority Support for Gay Marriage

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Hell, it's been at least a couple of months since we've last had such a topic, and there actually is some significant change on this issue since we last had one. Support for gay marraige has beem the majority opinion in eight of the last nine national polls on the issue done by credible polling agencies, including the newly released CNN poll out this week. This is significant in that there was never a poll prior to 2009 showing majority support for gay marraige.

One of the more interesting topics that article covers is also how little commentary gay marriage has been getting in recent years, in terms of national elections. Since the historic Prop 8 in California in 2008 (which is still hung up in court, and seems destined to go to the Supreme Court eventually), there hasn't been a lot of talk in elections of candidates support or opposition to gay marriage. It was almost a non-issue in the 2010 midterms. In the past, there was typically an electoral advantage to be opposed to gay marriage, or at least not going farther that allowing civil unions. That appears to no longer be the case.

It also creates a type of positive feedback loop: As fewer and fewer candidates take positions in opposition to gay marriage, it appears to soften the public's opposition to it, which causes national polls to trend away from opposition.

That is not to say that if an election were held tomorrow that supporters of gay marriage would win at the polls - in fact there is a lot of evidence to suggest that this wouldn't happen. Opposition to gay marriage correlates well with the age of the voter. The older you are, the more likely you are to oppose gay marriage. Additionally, the likelihood of voting also correlates well with the age of the voter. The older you are, the more likely you are to go to the polls on election day. So in any given election, older voters tend to out-perform younger voters in terms of turnout rates relative to the percentage they comprise of the general population.

That said, the results are rather stunning. If we continue the trendline of the last few years out to the end of next year (i.e., the next national election), it shows a majority support for gay marriage at 56%, to 40% opposed, with a small number (4%) of undecideds. Now just like the stock market - past performance is no guarantee of future results. It's also no surprise that support for gay marriage is increasing - it has been doing so gradually for the past 20 years. However, it appears the rate at which support is increasing is .... well.. increasing.

 

Well.. yeah.

Funnily enough, there's less fascists in todays civilized world.

 

If you ignore the extreme right swing in Europe the past few years.

 

Even then, I'd still say there were probably more in the 30s.

 

Yeah, but it's a big change here in the states. Even 10 years ago, the ratio of those who opposed gay marriage to those who supported it was easily 2 to 1. Most of the people alive 10 years ago are still alive today, so that suggests shifting attitudes. It's not really fair to compare people from the 30s to people of today, because most of them are dead now.

 

Everyone sit down and if you have a heart condition please take an aspirin or have the nitroglycerin nearby. I have changed my position on "Gay Marriage" and am no longer opposed to it. What changed my mind was I picked up a lesbian married couple as a client this year (it is legal here in MA) and the inequity in the tax law was stunning to me. It was a very complicated tax return as I had to prepare two single federal returns and one married state return. Well in order to do this I had to prepare a married federal and then split it to 2 married filing seperate and then change them to single. While doing so I was keeping track of the numbers. They ended up paying over 9K more in taxes then they would have if they had been a heterosexual couple. That inequity bothered the hell out of me so I have flipped.

 

Snook - can you explain (I'm genuinely interested - this is not a critique on your abilities as an accountant) why married couples pay less taxes than unmarried people? Where was the 9K from? What deduction(s) were they allowed to take as a married couple that they couldn't take as single individuals? I know tax brackets differ for single versus married - is that where the major difference lies?

 

There isn't any particular thing that married people get that single people don't. In this particular case one spouse made all of the money and the other essentially nothing. What this meant on the federal side is that the spouse who made little had her excess exemptions and deductions go to waste whereas they could have been used to offset the high earner spouse's income if they had been married. Combine that with the different "break points" in the brackets and it was a lot of money.

 

It takes a lot to change one's position on a contentious issue, and even more to declare it publicly. I applaud you, Snook. And not because you've changed to a position I hold.

 

Thats not really a controversial stance, the main reason why they are fighting so hard for hte right to marry is financial issues like this. The state tend to give various legal benefits to married couples that other couples do not get. For me, either all committed couples get this or none. The entire religious thing is secondary at best.

 

I knew it! DR is a lesbian. Explains the Jaheira fascination....