The Tipping Point Was Obama's Election

A new Gallup poll says that support for gay marriage as morally acceptable has increased from 40% in 2001 to 52% in 2010, while opposition fell from 53% to 43% over the same period. This is the first time that support for gay marriage as morally acceptable has crossed the 50% mark. Interestingly, the poll used the term "homosexual relations" rather than "gay/lesbian marriages" - and reports have suggested that the term "homosexual" prompts more opposition in polls to issues of gay rights than do the terms "gay" or "lesbian."

The tipping point came in late 2008. While there certainly was a short-lived era of good feeling right about the election, lots of Americans have since then lurched into a grotesque, reactionary posture (teabaggers, I'm looking at you). Yet the support for the morality of gay marriage has continued to grow.

Here's a thought: the two figures seem to be connected. The percentage of those who see gay marriage as morally acceptable is rising, and the percentage of those who see gay marriage as morally unacceptable is declining. These two trends would not necessarily be correlative; the percentage of people who are undecided or have no opinion is also a factor. (It was 7% in 2001, 5% in 2010.) But it seems that a rise of one percent in the "morally acceptable" camp translates directly into a decrease of one percent in the "morally unacceptable" camp.

What does this mean? Well, I think it means that Americans are actually changing their minds about gay marriage. Those who used to believe that gay marriage is morally unacceptable (or who had no opinion on the matter) are, today, more likely to hold an affirmative view that gay marriage is moral. Another reason to think this: one of the largest increases in support for gay marriage came from Catholics, who are, I think, more likely than the average population to have opposed gay marriage back in 2001. Ultimately, this paints a picture of a very definite shift in the thinking of Americans - this is not a fluid situation but a decisive, accelerated, and clear reversal of a previous trend. The people of this country are in the process of choosing to support gay marriage. They are scrapping old views and changing their minds.

While legal challenges can and should always be pursued, the growing popular support for gay marriage means that legislative solutions, at the state and federal levels, become more feasible. Legislative solutions are my preferred way of redressing the denial of marriage and other rights to gays - they are simply more democratic and they only require persuading your fellow citizens with the rightness of your case. Legal battles, however, have had a mixed rate of success, and adverse rulings could (and have) set back other legal challenges as well. Simply put, a legal battle is more of an uphill affair. And in any event, I'd like to think I live in a community that supports the rightness of that right, and I'd have a better sense of that if the right to marriage were extended by elected representatives rather than unelected judges.

Update: Meanwhile, in a poll by CNN/Opinion Research, 78% of Americans support repealing DADT. No tipping point there - that's virtually unchanged from 2007.