More Americans Support Same-Sex Marriage Than Ever
Republicans nearly at majority approval.
As Gay Pride month draws toward a close, a new poll by the Pew Research Center suggests the fight over same-sex marriage in the United States is over. This is not Roe v. Wade 2.0.
Sixty-two percent of Americans support legal recognition for married gay couples, while only 32 percent opposed, according to the latest poll numbers gathered earlier in June. Gay marriage and homosexuality itself does not represent the cultural divide it used to and is becoming "normalized" in the eyes of most Americans.
It's worth remembering majority support for same-sex marriage recognition surpassed opposition for the first time in 2011. This shift has taken place over just six years.
Pew notes that demographic groups historically more opposed to same-sex marriage have shifted significantly. For the first time a majority of baby boomers support legal recognition. Over the past two years, support for recognition among African Americans has increased from 39 percent to 51 percent. Support from younger white evangelical Christians has jumped from 29 percent to 47 percent in just a year.
In terms of the political fight over who "owns" the LGBT vote, it's worth noting what's going on with Republicans. For the first time, opposition to legal recognition among Republicans and Republican leaners has dropped below the majority. It's nearly split now—47 percent favor recognition while 48 percent oppose it.
That shift in the political winds is very important in terms of how elements of the LGBT movement are attempting to tie it to "The Resistance" and reinforce the idea that the real LGBT political movement leans to the left.
The end result this year has been a purging of actual LGBT people from pride marches for not holding the right views or for being—interestingly enough—members of disfavored groups. A gay supporter of President Donald Trump became a national news story because a pride parade in Charlotte, North Carolina, is refusing to let him participate.
In cities like Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., protesters attempted to block police participation in the parade, in some sort of attempt to draw attention to police abuse. In Chicago, people said they were told they could not wave flags displaying the Star of David and express their Jewish heritage within the parade because it made others uncomfortable.
In each of these cases, people are trying to purge other LGBT participants for reasons that have little to do directly with the gay community. Trying to ban the police was particularly loathsome (and you could tell from responses to the behavior in the media coverage), given that gay people have both been fighting for years to get police to treat them with respect and to serve as openly gay police officers. The political roots of gay pride are deeply embedded in stopping police violence targeting gay people. That's what the Stonewall Riots were about!
There's something particularly narcissistic about trying to purge your adversaries from your sight by denying them participation in these events and thinking that this is a useful response. There is nothing about purging police from a march that's going to improve the relationship between police and minority communities. Purging Jewish flags is not going to do a single thing to improve the relationship between Israel and Palestine.
That support for gay marriage has so dramatically increased is a direct reflection of the value of participation, not of purging and segregation. LGBT people are increasingly visible in all communities (not just urban enclaves), and the realization that gay marriage helps strengthen families and social stability has undoubtedly contributed to the dramatic drop in resistance to gay relationships.
Activists might want to keep that in mind before trying to deliberately boot people out of the movement.
