New Poll Shows Support For Gay Marriage Growing

The latest Poll by the Pew Research Center shows that support for gay marriage is increasing across the board.

Since I'm always leery of polls unless I know who the pollster is, I should tell you that the Pew Research center is a non-partisan, Washington based organization and is often cited by policy-makers, journalists, academics and advocates from across the political spectrum.

The poll results were released last Tuesday (6/10/08) and show dramatic changes in attitudes towards gay marriage between 2004 and 2008.

According to the poll, there has been a marked decline in opposition toward gay marriage among women, college graduates, and senior citizens. Opposition among women has dropped from 56% in 2004 to 46% in 2008. While 46% of college graduates opposed gay marriage in 2004, only 38% oppose it now. Opposition among senior citizens (ages 65 and up) has dropped 10% since 2004, from 68% to 58%.

BUT --- according to the study, civil unions still prove to be much more popular than gay marriage. 38% of Americans support full marriage equality but a majority of 51% favor civil unions. Although that's not exactly what we want since civil unions only give us some of the rights of heterosexual couples, it does show that a majority of Americans now favor some sort of legal union between same-sex couples.

What is clear is the fact that people's attitudes are changing and seem to be changing at a faster pace than at any other time in our history. This bodes well for the eventual acceptance of fully protected, same-sex marriages.

Full story at  Advocate.com.

Full Poll results at Pew Research Center.