From the Field summary:
For the first time in over three decades of polling on the issue of same-sex marriage laws, The Field Poll finds more California voters approving than disapproving of allowing same-sex couples the right to marry and having regular marriage laws apply to them. In a survey completed May 17-26 among a random sample of 1,052 registered voters the idea of allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry is now approved by a 51% to 42% margin statewide.
This is up from 44%-50% (with the 50% disapproving) in 2006, and similar numbers in 2003 and 2004. Women are substantially more likely to support recognizing same-sex marriage than men; men favor recognizing same-sex marriage by 4% (within the margin of error), while women favor it by 14%. The proposed constitutional amendment banning recognition of same-sex marriages is opposed by 54%-40% or 51%-43%, depending on how the question is asked. All in all, very different results from those reported by the L.A. Times poll last week.
Note, though, that if civil unions are included as an option, the result becomes 51% to 45% against recognizing same-sex marriage (though that's down from 60% to 36% two years ago).
Related Posts (on one page):
- Field Poll Shows Majority Support Among California Registered Voters for Same-Sex Marriage:
- Men, Women, and Same-Sex Marriage:
- "Californians Barely Reject Gay Marriage,"
The shift in the three-way preference (marriage, civil unions, or nothing) is dramatic enough to be suspect. There was a small uptick in preferring marriage when Field asked this question last time (2006), but the change since then is enormous.
At least the Field Poll is internally consistent (and shows a plausible proportion of undecideds). That's more than I can say for the L.A. Times version.
In other words, if you believe that marriage is mostly about people's feelings for one another (coupling), then you can't really protest "same sex" marriage easily without being subject to the accusation of discrimination. If people accept the idea that marriage is essentially coupling, then the victory over "same sex" marriage is simply a question of letting people get used to the idea.
But if marriage is something else -- that is, that what needs to be done socially is not only to keep the concept of gender in it, but reverse the redefinition -- then you can make a stronger argument against same-sex marriage.
Marriage was supposed to be the only licit place for sexual activity and a lifelong commitment, allowing for the creation, proper raising and education of children, supported by family, friends, community and enforced by the state. But we've eliminated virginity, sexual exclusivity, child-rearing, lifelong commitment regardless of feelings, etc., all from the definition of marriage. So why not gender? Why not number?
Same-sex marriage proponents sometimes think I'm singling out homosexuals, but I'm not. I'm trying to say that if we take this next step (of SSM), we're permanently affirming this redefinition of marriage. Then most respond, "Well, I'm OK with the redefinition, anyway" and I usually respond along the lines, "I know. That's how you got there."
Of course, re-establishing the older definition of marriage is like getting the toothpaste back in the tube. When it comes to sexuality and the idea that our society has a responsibility to regulate it in some fashion, our culture has fundamentally changed; in my opinion, far for the worse.
To win against SSM, essentially, requires to re-fight a lot of old battles.
The next battle is, of course, polgamy. Probably within 10 to 15 years. Or it could be incest. That's probably farther off because I think the incest taboo has a lot more of a yuck factor and is deeply ingrained.
Another of my arguments against SSM is more about discrimination law, and thus is slightly off point. That is, SSM opens the door for legal attacks on those who disagree with the normalization of homosexuality in our culture, or against SSM in particular. We've already seen these attacks, which I won't renumerate here.
Anyway, we'll see what the people of Cali decide. Is the remnant big enough to hold the definition of marriage for a while longer? We'll find out in November.
Granted, Field does emphasize electoral politics more than PPIC. Even there, PPIC sometimes beats Field (consider the run up to adopting Prop. 22 in particular).
You can make the argument that marriage was supposed to be the only place for the creation of children. But that has never been the case throughout human history.
The transition of property and the creation/strengthening of familial/political alliances has more merit.
And what a tragedy that will be, when bigots are constrained to voicing their bigotry instead of inflicting it on the people they hate in the form of workplace discrimination and hate crimes.
If your fear is that the bigots will be shouted down by popular sentiment, then I'm not sure how to see this as anything other than the marketplace of ideas deciding, after decades of deliberation, that their ideas are hateful and obsolete.
Exactly the worldview I was concerned about. The assumption that people who disagree are "bigots," the implied victimology, etc.
The marketplace of ideas? Golly, you mean the SSM movement wasn't kicked off by a few judges decisions in Vermont and Massachusetts, and now, California? It was a grass-roots movement NOT driven by elites in the judiciary, the legal system and the media?
Golly, I just must remember it differently.
Good point.
I’d be careful about treating undecideds that way (but knowing exactly what to do with them is less clear). On same-sex marriage measures, the undecideds tend to break against SSM (i.e. would support this initiative). That said, I wouldn’t move more than about three percent into the opposition to SSM.
In California, most ballot measures tend toward 10 percent of ballots not casting a vote (give or take maybe three percent). Really arcane measures stray into the upper teens not voting. On marriage, three-strikes (and handful of other measures with snappy titles), you should expect about four percent of voters to not express an opinion.
How strange. It's as though you see marriage as an absolute dichotomy between the whore and the hijab. The parallels between the positions of the radical Christianist right in America and Sharia law in the Middle East have always been a little unsettling.
2) if polygamy were legal, then there would be no need for polygamist cults to hide away at YFZ-type compounds and raise their children to become old men's sex slaves (female) or outcasts (male).
Yes; it was kicked off, according to most accounts, by the Stonewall Riots in the 1960s. Organized resistance of arrest in the face of unjust laws is as grass-roots as it gets.
But moreover, the "elites" in the judiciary, legal system and media cannot tell us what to think; we have to decide for ourselves. The most they can do is FORCE us to decide. In any case, there have been plenty of "elites" espousing the anti-gay side, from charismatic, political-machine preachers to well-funded political advocacy groups to the President of the United States himself endorsing an anti-gay amendment to the United States Constitution. In this case, the emerging consensus is in favor of marriage equality and against the hateful bigotry of anti-gay people like yourself. You are losing and will inevitably lose, just as the antisemites and racists before you lost their struggles. The infuriating part for you must be that all of your side's rhetoric is aimed at activist judges and the gay lobby -- but you are completely unprepared when it is the people themselves who reject your intolerance.
It is a losing battle, but it still needs to be fought, just in case. The real consequences of SSM have more to do with:
1. Discrimination law applications, as I mentioned before, and
2. The philosophical arguments made that led us to SSM.
The parallels between the positions of the radical Christianist right in America and Sharia law in the Middle East.
Actually, it's Roman Catholicism 101.
You're correct that the battle is lost for your side, but it is lost because the general population is compassionate enough to recognize, eventually, that two consenting adults who love one another should, for their sake and for their children's, be permitted to marry.
With all due respect, the Field poll means nothing. The voters have had their opportunity to vote on gay marriage, and voted it down. (Twice I believe) That's the only poll that matters.
I'd like to the constitutional amendment come to a vote in November. (Of course, we'll get the usual lawsuits to keep it off the ballot, i.e. issues with wording, etc.) If the voters shot down the amendment, then gay marriage becomes legitimate, and not a product of judicial fiat.
For the record, I would vote against any attempt to keep gay marriage from being legal. Why shouldn't homosexuals be every bit as miserable as the rest of us, and why shouldn;t they hear "not tonight honey, but I'll pencil you in for the 22nd of next month?"
I was referring more to the "public accommodation" discrimination cases. I mis-wrote. Sorry for the confusion. Employment is an entirely different issue in my mind than public accommodation or marriage. When it comes to employment, for example, homosexuals aren't seeking to change the definition of work.
I wouldn't place too much stock in Frum's abilities as a political strategist. Just because it might not work in 2030 doesn't mean it will hurt much future. And, of course, one can easily draw the conclusion that everything possible should be done now to entrench into law the traditional definition of marriage.
As for the Field poll numbers, I'd mention that it's a survey of registered voters rather than likely voters. Also, the poll doesn't mention the civil union option. In any case, it still means the opponents of SSM have got their work cut out for them in CA.
No, not yet. The next step is turning GLBT into a full-on special-protections class like minorities and women, complete with institutionalized legal and private(enforced by lawsuit) discrimination against straights.
Give GLBT some time, they haven't even found their Al Sharpton nor their La Raza yet.
Only after that will we be able to move on to the next step.
On the merits, given the ease with which Californians can both amend the state constitution and enact laws by initiative, I am all in favor of a vote this year--and I will respect the vote regardless of which way the people vote because the people, rather than the courts, will have spoken.
However, I suspect that there are those on both sides who will not.
Pender,
Do you not get just a twinge of doubt in your position, when you froth so visibly, declaring SSM opponents as bigots akin to anti-semites and racists, and then proceed to deride them for being "intolerant"?
Here's a little point that you seem to not grasp. SSM involves behavior, not status. So long as a particular targets homosexual behavior, rather than gay status, it is not in any manner the same as racist or anti-semitic laws. Moreover, laws discriminating against certain behaviors fit within the long American (and world-wide) history of legislating morality. You yourself want to legislate your own vision of morality on the rest of us - gay or straight. Of course, the vast majority of Americans are strongly opposed to SSM. How does it feel to believe that the vast majority of Americans are evil?
I just wish you would own up to it, and admit that you simply are offended because someone calls something you embrace "immoral." Your rage and name-calling, especially considering the measured comments of your opponents on this thread, is revealing. If you can't type without your hands trembling, you need to take a break and collect your thoughts before typing.
Pender, you misunderstand the modern political usage of the term "elite." It does not mean "powerful." Rather, it means someone who does not believe the common American is intelligent/educated enough to make decisions in the best interests of the country, and thus an 'elite' group should be given authority to make decisions for them - like a parent over a child. Anyone who calls for something to be put to the vote of the people is not acting in an elitist manner. Perhaps a demagogue or populist, but not an elitist.
Is it possible to believe the majority of one's fellow citizens are wrong on a particular subject and avoid this silly charge of being "elite?" One could make the opposite charge that those advocating the barring of SSM are moralizing, indulgent populists carrying the whim of the mob.
Plenty of good things have come from the latte-sipping, New York Times reading elites of the past -- whether it was abolition, civil rights in general or interracial marriage in particular. Plenty of people railed against those troublemaking "elites" of those times too.
Of course, some elites also advocated eugenics, so I'm not suggesting everything from alleged elites are always good per se. But quit with the name-calling -- it suggests you have nothing better on your side beyond class warfare politics to fight SSM. I'm on the side of those effete latte-sippers on this one.
DU
I'm not saying there is something inherently wrong with being an elitist. I happen to be very opposed to economic populism and the 'two Americas' stuff coming from politicians like Huckabee and Edwards. So I am quite willing to say that most people are dumb as rocks when it comes to economics. But I am willing to let the people vote for stupid economic policies, because that's the downside of a democratic republic. I am concerned here with moral elitism, which I find much more repugnant than other forms of elitism because it claims that the common man is incapable of making proper moral decisions. There is something much worse about challenging a man's moral compass than his economic understanding.
Moreover, the problem with elitism is that it invariably leads to group think and an inability to see the gross harm that results (e.g., Soviet central planning of agriculture - which placed the minds of some bureaucrats above the farmers on the ground). Here, the elitism which backs SSM ignores the ramifications of SSM beyond the narrow minded "let gays marry" immediate result. Thus, it dismisses any criticism of SSM as "bigotry" and thus unworthy of intellectual debate. That's what it is wrong with elitism, and why it is a fair and appropriate charge to level against posters like pender who knee-jerk to "bigots!"
Well, then what is the harm of SSM, then, either to the average citizen or anyone else for that matter?
The best objection I've seen in the VC comments section is simply some vague, Burkean notion that we should leave things well enough alone, that gay marriage will make society all that much more unstable -- an odd proposition considering that gay men and women account perhaps for 4 or 5 percent of the population, whose marriage activities would always be dwarfed by the numbers of heterosexual marriages and divorces.
I doubt the gay couple down the street getting married and dealing with California's community property and divorce laws will have any impact on your own marriage.
As for the popular polygamy/slippery-slope argument, I think the American experience with such unions is that they are inherently abusive -- polygamy in North America is associated with religious cults, domestic violence, and the abandonment of male children. This is a hurdle gay marriages don't face and would likely come up as a significant challenge to a polygamous relationship in a hypothetical case.
Incidentally, societies that did (or still do) allow for multiple partners do so with rules mandating that the common spouse have enough resources to support their multiple spouses. This would be a significant burden to any modern-day King Solomon, I think.
DU
" Thus, it dismisses any criticism of SSM as "bigotry" and thus unworthy of intellectual debate. That's what it is wrong with elitism, and why it is a fair and appropriate charge to level against posters like pender who knee-jerk to "bigots!"
Really? All you have to do is head on over to another thread here at VC, whereby the prof gives a hypo about SSM and children. The comments there are pretty enlightening, because everyone there pretty much puts all gays on par with drug abusers, criminals, alcoholics, and the lowest dregs of society, and something so awful that they would never let their children play with other children who'se parents happen to be gay.
Now, if that isn't anti-gay bigotry, then what is?
I am all for the intellectual debate, and am happy that wooga appears to see some immediate positive ramifications of "letting gays marry".
Having stipulated that there are indded these positive ramifications, and being able to somehow quantify them (or at least point at them)like, for instance: more stable environments for same sex families, including their children, ability to make medical decisions on behalf of your partner, easeness in property transfer after death, legally settled procedures in case of separation, including child support, etc. (and these raminifations can be through civil unions or SSM), can someone start elaborating, also in a QUANTIFIABLE manner what are the negative long-term implications everybody is afraid of. I am willing to debate them, analyze them, mitigate them, etc. But for the debate to proceed, we need to finally define what it is that we are talking about, and not mere "diffuse" costs.
So, is that analysis is correct, then the initiative has little chance of passing, and that would mean a majority of Californians approve of SSM.
Now, anything can happen between now and then, but I would suspect it would take the wind out of the sails for those who assume Americans are totally against SSM.
Well, We the People and all that ... if the people actually say, "We want to change the definition of marriage," that's one thing and I'll accept that society has accepted it. (In this case -- I'm not arguing for rule-by-plebiscite [sp?], only that in the case of SSM, it seems particularly well-suited to be held up for a democratic vote, one way or the other.)
Marriage has a social aspect of it -- that is, when someone say they're married, that creates an obligation for the rest of us. It's not always clear that that is my one of my objections to SSM. You see, I believe homosexual monogamy is nothing I need to support -- homosexuals can have endless amounts of sex and never get pregnant, and thus their sexual activity doesn't need to be regulated through the institution of marriage. The only regulations of homosexual activity should be under existing law applicable to all sexual activities (that is, consensual, non-incestuous, age-appropriate, not in public, public health, etc.)
Somehow, this viewpoint makes me an anti-gay bigot, though ...
However, if SSM comes about, I will immediately begin pressuring my homosexual friends to avoid premarital and extramarital sex, to choose one individual to share his or her sexual intimacy with for life, and to make a lifelong commitment that withstands the vagaries of feeling and time. Why we all need to do that, I have no idea. But there it is.
Of course, I suspect that many of those who are pushing for SSM will soon be explaining to us that their relationships are different, and premarital and extramarital sex are part of the marriage equation in their relationships.
Or perhaps there might be the suggestion that marriage should be about more than just getting a peg into a little hole as often as possible? Perhaps gay people recognize that there is more to a complete life than games of hide the hot dog?
Have you ever noticed that for all the talk about gay people being "perverts", it's almost always the homophobes (a quite appropriate term) who seem fixated on sex? I'm reminded of a former acquaintance who, in the process of ending our acquaintanceship (?) after I had come out, said something to the effect of "I just can't talk to you any more without thinking about what you do in the bedroom". I'm sorry? And you think I'M the one with the problem?
Here, if it makes you feel better, why don't you just assume that like many married couples, we stopped having sex with each other a long time ago. Some of us recognize that a marriage license is a lot more than a license to ****. We can already do that, with or without your approval. What we value and covet and will fight for is the basic fundamental rights and responsibilities that go hand in hand with having, nurturing, and protecting one's family. And that goes far beyond who has what and what goes where.
So it seems that somehow you believe that there is NO social good whatsoever about avoiding premarital and extramarital sex, choosing one individual to share his or her sexual intimacy with for life, and making a lifelong commitment that withstands the vagaries of feeling and time.
If there is some social good, then, yes, you should encourage pressuring your gay friends (your friends would rather that you called them gays, not homosexuals, I mean, if you care about your friends' preferences) to enter into a long lasting monogamous relationship, settle down, care for each other and perhaps even adopt a child that might otherwise be aborted.
But then, it seems you see no value in marriage beyond regulating the sexual activity that can result in pregnancy. Anything else seems to be of no value. After all, according to you, you get married for the sex.
And please, before assuming what those of us that want to get into a long lived same sex commitment want, just ask, instead of suspecting anything.
LOL. And you had the family how?
You're a little abstract in your thinking. But boy, you sure have some heroic self-narrative going there.
Well, it is someone's family. They get a little touchy when you treat it as a joke.
Imagine that.
DU
<<<
Why?
Why hide behind a euphemism?
Just wondering.
Of course, I suspect that many of those who are pushing for SSM will soon be explaining to us that their relationships are different, and premarital and extramarital sex are part of the marriage equation in their relationships.
</blockquote>
Wishing would be more like it. As we know from the NHSLS survey, over 80% of women and 65-85% of men of every age report they had no sexual partners other than their spouse while heterosexually married meaning the inverse did.
The Partners Task Force self-selected study in 1995 found that 91% of female partners and 63% of male partners were in consciously monogamous relationships.
Not directly comparable but personally I think you will find that 13 years later monogamy is even more common, especially among male couples and even more so among those that license their marriages with government.
I don't think heterosexual married couples are as monogamous as you think nor are homosexual married couples as promiscuous as you seem to suppose.
Sure. You can believe they are wrong, and nonetheless believe that their views should hold sway anyway.
Why hide behind a euphemism?
Just wondering.
"Homosexual" has a clinical air about it, and in fact was the term used by the psychiatric community when it was denoted as a disease. It's certainly an acceptable term, but it feels like jargon. In my personal experience, those who insist on using it as opposed to "gay" in conversation tend to be the ones who want to limit gay rights.
It's generally good manners to refer to people as they'd like to be referred to as.
And for Dave Gr's point above, I suppose: guilty as charged. In most matters, the majority ought to rule. But not to the determent of important minority rights. This is why I remain a committed (small r) republican -- call it "elite" if you must, with all that swishy latte-sipping it must convey.
DU
Why? Because it involves the rights of a minority?
Gender and number are profoundly different categories. Gender is an accident of biology. I can easily imagine a world with no gender or with more than two genders. Number is one of the most basic logical categories. I cannot imagine a world were 2=3. And in legal/political terms, when we allowed women, Blacks and 18 year olds to vote no one took that as license to vote plural times in the same election. I see no reason why marriage should be different.
Re: Same-sex marriage proponents sometimes think I'm singling out homosexuals, but I'm not. I'm trying to say that if we take this next step (of SSM), we're permanently affirming this redefinition of marriage.
Actually, we'd be reaffirming at least one old definition: that sexual relations properly belong within marriage. The current situation where gay people are, in effect "sexual outlaws" (by which I mean that their relations are tolerated but without the moral stricture and expectation that marriage entails) is far more corrossive to marriage than gay marriage could be. If Adam and Steve are living in sin why not Adam and Eve?
Re: The voters have had their opportunity to vote on gay marriage, and voted it down.
And voters of course never change their minds. 100 years ago the suffragettes shoudl have dropped their push for women voting as soon as it was voted down once.