Majority Support For Marriage Equality in Colorado

A new poll from PPP (pdf) confirms that marriage equality has majority support in Colorado. In fact, legal state recognition of same-sex relationships is a position expressed by an overwhelming majority of Coloradans in the poll, which was conducted remotely by telephoning 542 Colorado voters from April 5-7, 2012 and has a margin of error of ±4.2 points.

A majority of Coloradans support legalizing gay marriage, and only 22% feel there should be no legal recognition at all of same sex couples, a new poll from Public Policy Polling finds. 53% of Colorado voters say same sex marriage should be legal and 40% say it should be illegal. Voters also say they would support the Colorado legislature passing a bill that would let same-sex couples form civil unions by a 62-32 margin. When asked whether they support gay marriage, civil unions but not gay marriage, or no legal recognition at all of same sex couples, 47% choose legal gay
marriage, 28% say civil unions and just 22% say there should be no legal recognition
whatsoever of gay couples.

“Colorado is another in a growing number of states where polls show voters are rapidly shifting towards supporting legal gay marriage,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling.  

This should barely be news any longer, since in 2011 multiple national polls showed majority support for marriage equality, but it is always exciting to see it reinforced at the state level that marriage equality is becoming the majority position, and the heterosexual supremacists are slowly becoming a bitter, vituperative minority trying to cling to a discriminatory status quo.

The cross-tabs by party affiliation on the marriage equality questions are fascinating:

Note that a plurality (43%) of Colorado Republicans take the position that there should be no legal recognition of same-sex relationships! A more important number is found buried in the cross-tabs by age:

A stunning 77% of people in the 18-29 age bracket think same-sex marriage should be legal. Is it likely that they are going to change their mind as they get older? Maybe some of them, but it is highly improbable that they will have the same profile as people older than 65 (who oppose marriage equality 59% to 28%).

Basically, the kulturkampf over marriage equality is almost over, which is something even one of the proponents of the anti-gay marriage amendment in North Carolina, House Speaker Tom Tillis acknowledged recently:

Tillis was quoted as predicting the amendment will pass with about 54 percent of the vote, but will be repealed within 20 years because young people are more supportive of marriage rights for same sex couples. 

"It's a generational issue," Tillis, a Republican, was quoted as saying. "If it passes, I think it will be repealed within 20 years."  

A new poll from North Carolina says that 45% of voters agree with Tillis (while 41% disagree) that marriage equality will be legal in their state in 20 years. Regardless, the point is that they are still willing to have the entire state vote on inserting explicit discriminatory language into the founding document of the state so that for the next twenty years the prejudices of heterosexual supremacists can be bolstered until their numbers die out to the level where the progressive value of equality for all prevails. I

Is that sick or what?