Insistent media messages claim surging and overwhelming public support for redefinition of marriage but recent numbers from major surveys and the Census Bureau tell a very different story.
In late September, a Pew Center poll found less than half of respondents – 49% to be exact – saying that they “favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally” – a sharp five point
drop since February. Without the biased wording of the question, gay marriage might have received even weaker public backing: if a survey asks you if you want to “allow” other people to do something they say they ardently desire, you’d have to be deeply committed to traditional matrimony to say no. Had Pew asked “Do you want your government to redefine marriage so that male-male and female-female couples are treated identically to traditional marriages?” the response to sweeping change could have been still less favorable.
That’s particularly obvious in light of another surprising result in the poll: a full 50% of respondents agreed with the statement that “homosexual behavior is a sin,” including 77% of black Protestants and a crushing 82% of white Evangelicals. Moreover, the overall percentage of those viewing homosexuality as “sinful” has been soaring, not declining: it’s up from 45% in May of 2013.
Considering the demographics in the 31 states that have so far resisted the nationwide push for gay marriage, it’s tough to imagine that these electorates, with their heavy concentration of Evangelicals and blacks, will endorse government sponsorship of same sex couples at any time in the near future.
New Figures Show Gay Marriage Tidal Wave Is Only a Trickle Truth Revolt
