POLL: Support For Marriage Equality Hits 59% Nationally!

The blows keep coming to the heterosexual supremacists who want to deny marriage equality to same-sex couples. The latest news is that the American public agrees with the reasoning made by federal judges in recent rulings that the constitution guarantee of "equal protection under the law" gives gays and lesbians the right to marry. The new ABC/Washington Post poll reveals that 50% of Americans agree with this position while 41% do not.

The numbers on support or opposition to marriage for gay and lesbian couples is simply a rout. 59% of Americans say they support marriage equality, a mere 2 years after marriage equality became a majority position. While some have remarked on the rapid growth of support for marriage equality, Kevin Drum notes that it is on par with what happened with popular opinion in opposition to interracial marriage in the 1970s and 1980s.

Although, I would argue that Drum's graph actually bolsters the point (that many LGBT activists have been making) that support for marriage equality has increased FASTER than support for marriage equality because 1) Drum used 19 years of data on interracial marriage and superimposed it onto the 17 years on the chart and 2) interracial marriage was legalized in 1967 (-11) on the horizontal axis so the sample window for interracial marriage is incorrectly viewed.

Regardless, as Joe Jervis notes, the future for gay marriage is incredibly bright:

The younger generation simply does NOT understand what the fuss is about. Support for marriage equality among the under-30 crowd is above 80%.  Let adults marry whom they want regardless of gender. How does one person's right to marry the person they love impact your right to marry?