Majority in US now favor same-sex marriage, poll indicates
March 21, 2011
A majority of Americans now favor legal recognition of same-sex marriage, according to a Washington Post-ABC news poll.
The poll shows 53% in favor of same-sex marriage, and 44% opposed. The results represent a dramatic swing in public opinion during the past several years. In 2004, a similar poll found the public opposing same-sex marriage by nearly a 2-to-1 margin. A few decades earlier the question might have been considered unthinkable.
Unsurprisingly, the Washington Post-ABC poll showed a sharp division in public opinion, with an unusually high number of respondents indicating that they were “strongly” opposed to, or in favor of, legal recognition for same-sex unions.
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Posted by: Chestertonian -
Mar. 21, 2011 7:58 PM ET USA
A random sampling of only 1005 people is hardly definitive. As with so many polls, this really has little value, except as a tool for ABC and the WP to try to swing opinions of those who pay attention to polls instead of forming their own opinions. If the numbers are valid, how then to explain the defeat of Prop 8 in California and the recent failure of a gay marriage bill in Maryland, and several others in recent weeks? Votes matter. Polls? Not so much.
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Posted by: dover beachcomber -
Mar. 21, 2011 7:17 PM ET USA
And thanks to two generations of bad adult catechesis and the permissive attitudes of not a few bishops, I'm sure that a large share of that 53% are "Catholic."
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Posted by: polish.pinecone4371 -
Mar. 21, 2011 6:46 PM ET USA
It just goes to show, no matter how often we clamor, "We're adults! We can think for ourselves!" we are really just as easily led by the nose as anyone else is.
