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Gay Marriage Poll | ||||
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Discussion:
Gay Marriage Poll
Gordondon son of Ethelred
· 21 years, 2 months ago
The American Family Association: America's Pro Family Online Activist Organization Is running a poll on gay marriage. OF course any poll on their site is going to suffer from sampling error.
In any event I thought you might want to put in your 2 cents. Here's a link to the poll.
Gee, I wonder if there's a hint of bias on those results! Here's our own biased poll.
Hehe. Someone sent that link to the listserv of my very liberal college, so a number of those who support gay marriage on that poll are from Western at Miami University :-)
sweet!!!
When I voted on that... two or three days ago... it was 99% opposing... now it's down to 63%!!! :D 
...and 54% now. heh, it's only supposed to be for americans.
oh well. if anyone asks, i'm Sasha Laciette and i live in Maryland and my zip code is 75463. 
Oops. Maryland can't be 75463. That would be out west somewhere. Let's see... Ok, that isn't a valid zip code. So your vote will probably be thrown out. :(
eep. well, i just voted again. I'm now Willamina Reagan from Newark, New York, and my zip code is 14513. i checked that it was valid, too.
okay, so it may be unethical polltaking, but those fuckers make a mockery of the words "family" and "activist".
I do think voting like that is counterproductive. The more we vote like internet fanatics and not serious contributors the easier it is to write off the movement. 
Why? There is nothing fanatical about it. They are asking the question, and hoping to stack the deck in their favor. I think it is poetic justice if the rest of us come out and give them a more balanced view than they intended. The poll is totally unscientific (and therefore meaningless) anyway. A pure piece of propaganda, so why shouldn't a concerned Canadian pose as an American?
AJ said it very well. it's hardly a "random sample" (sure, anyone can vote on it, but it's like posting a poll asking "do you like George Bush?" on the door of Howard Dean's campaign office.)
there is no system of regulation for the voting... you can vote more than once, and under different names. i wouldn't be surprised if some of the really "dedicated family activists" rattled off 50 or so votes each.
I disagree. To me, it's still counterproductive. You present this poll to someone with actual power, with actual input into the governmental debate. You say "look, the AFA wants this amendment to pass but word got out and see, over 50% of people voting would oppose such an amendment." But look more closely and find any evidence of the stacking on behalf of those supporting gay marriage and it makes it really darn easy for the other side to throw out our credibility. They don't need to prove their credibility, they already have the upper hand. To fight it, in my opinion, we need a core of support that is not so easy to chip away. I don't think I'm making my point very well. I just think that to vote in anything but a direct way just hands them the gun to shoot down our opposition.
Don't you think it's happening on the other side too? Must be if they notice how much support the pro-gay marriage is getting.
Of course they're probably doing it on the other side. My point is, they don't need to fight for credibility. They already have the political upper hand, particularly with us having a president who would readily sign a gay marriage ban if it made it across his desk. In order to fight the obviously tilted balance of power we DO need to have a stronger and more ethical base of support. They don't need to worry about us being able to discount their poll answers, because they still have the political climate skewed their way. If we're to launch a counter-"assault" it needs to be done in a way where we can't be just written off.
particularly with us having a president who would readily sign a gay marriage ban if it made it across his desk.
I don't think this is necessarily true. Everything he says on the subject is shrouded in obfuscation. He makes a show of being against it, but frankly I think he's mostly trying to avoid the subject. Probably one of his biggest fears is such a ban actually coming across his desk, cause then he's probably have to sign it and I don't think he wants to do that. 
He is an amoral (often tending to immoral) son-of-a-bitch. I don't think he gives two shits about equality or gay rights. He cares only for his agenda and increasing the wealth of his friends. He's a baaaad man. However I do think that he is a spineless opportunits who believes in political expediancy. Therefore I think that you are right that he would probably rather not have to sign such a thing. He would rather support it without having to actually sign it so as to be more popular to more people. But if he were out of office, what would his opinion be? I think it would be "Fuck gay people. They shouldnt be allowed to marry like 'normal' people"
Sarah THE chicken
· 21 years, 2 months ago
How dare we attepmt to put limits on peoples feelings. I personally don't necessarily promote homosexuality, but I'm all for giving somebody the choice of who they love, and nobody (cept God....which not everybody believes in) ever said that who you love is or isn't the same sex. We have absolutely no rights to whether they marry or not. They deserve the exact same considerations as those of any heterosexual couple...(whew...been waiting to say that!)
I personally don't necessarily promote homosexuality
promote?
*only* the toaster oven? dude, i already have the toaster oven *and* the cappucino maker. man, we need to get together and promote some time.
promote..as in: To contribute to the progress or growth of; further. I don't want people thinking I'm all gungho for it, but who am I to say if it's right or not for somebody else. In my opinion not right..for somebody else..A way of life..
I don't want people thinking I'm all gungho for it,
Why not? Why does it matter if people think you are all "gungho" for gay marriage (or were you speaking of gayness?) or not. You know what you think, and can explain it if asked, but what is the difference if people think you are "pro-gay" or not, or indeed gay yourself or not? If it is nothing to be ashamed of, why worry if someone mistakenly takes you for gay?
Promote... Heh. I do! If I can turn a few right wing christians gay, then the world would be such a better place. :)
Okay, what is wrong with being "right wing" and "christian"? Talk about your fill-in-the-blank-bashing.
Well that would be because right wingers are basically wrong thinking people who are ruining our country. And so many Christians who bother to tell people that they are christians are out to force their brand of Christianity down others throats. So that is what is wrong with it. I'm sure there are a few people who don't fit the stereotype, but so what? It isn't like my turning them gay is a bad thing is it? Nothing wrong with being gay.
I dunno.. being straight works out pretty well for me... but hey, to each their own.
I'm straight. At the moment. (Married to a man, but I haven't always been with just men.) I am pro-family, pro-marriage as a commitment of your personal strength in keeping your promises to others, and I am pro-love, no matter what color, religion, social status, political convictions or SEX a person is. If you love someone, and they love you back, then you've found happiness. What could possibly be wrong with that? I vote yes, allow same sex couples to marry. "Vote Early, and Vote Often!" 
Does that make you a minority in Alaska? I've always heard it is VERY conservative there.
>"Does that make you a minority in Alaska? I've always heard it is VERY conservative there" Ironically I had this conversation already today. No, this part of Alaska is definitely Liberal in their political views, and has a very out, and open gay community. Maybe it's just my personal friends. My husband's ex-wife was "married" to a woman (they broke up after 5 years together though , just like even straight couples do sometimes) the local Elk's Club has a gay president, and the local Moose lodge has a lesbian president. My current and last boss are both gay. Don't let the fact that stupid Frank Murkowski won the governor's position give you the impression that Alaska is full of conservatives. I voted for Fran Ulmer.� Of course, everyone I talk to says they did too, so I don't know how she lost the race. Hmmm. Maybe it's just because I avoid the people who voted against Fran, or are "conservative". I guess I like living in my own little world ;-) Anyhow, I was just throwing in my 2 cents on how I voted. "Each to their own", of course. Not only am I politically inept, but I'm pretty lazy when it comes to debate.
That sounds like Ohio.
A fairly liberal state (in some areas at least), but the big conservatives get all the votes. *puts even more thought into one-day moving to Alaska* 
It must be the rest of the state you're talking about, either that, or NW Ohio is winning the elections for the repubs. Small-town Ohio is gut-wrenchingly conservative.
Parts, yes, but a lot of the small towns are more liberal.
For example, the impression I got at Bowling Green was that the students were far more conservative than the townies, and a lot of Ohio's larger small towns (Kent, Oberlin, Yellow Springs, Oxford, etc) are college towns. Also, I remember durring the last gov. race there were a lot more signs for Captain Janeway's husband (I can't remember his name) than for Taft. While Columbus has a large gay population, and thus leans liberal on a lot of this issues (despite there being a state-wide DOMA in the works), I got more of an overall liberal impression from NW ohio than I do here. Part of the problem with describing things like this is that the old "Left" and "Right" ideas are shifting...
I think Ohio, like Michigan, is a swing state. That is because there are shitloads of conservatives in the rural areas and small towns (except the ones Talcott mentioned) :) and a lot of liberals in the cities. It is that agriculture/industrial mix that does that. Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana are all that way. They do seem conservative by, say, Northeast standards, but compared to say, Nebraska or Oklahoma or god forbid, Texas, they are a lot more liberal.
I wouldn't consider Indiana a swing state, but I haven't really done my homework on this one.� Wasn't Indiana the only state that Kennedy didn't win?� In my fifteen years in the state, I've noticed that the state runs best when we have a republican legislature and a democratic executive.� But, by and large (and especially in national elections,) Indiana's votes are in the Republican camp before the polls open. I also think that midwestern college towns are decidedly more liberal than the surrounding communities.� Looking at Bloomington, we have a painful slant to the left.� Bloomington's Joe Voter would probably consider me conservative, while most of the�surrounding communities would consider me liberal... probably extremist.� Bloomington may be the oddball, since students have voting rights in local elections. 
Well, I don't know Indiana that intimately, so maybe it isn't so swing. I was just thinking about the political geography of the industrialized great lake states. That situation with college towns is true here in Michigan also. They are very liberal and yet surrounded by conservative rural areas.
But also there are the cities. In midwest cities, there are a lot of center to left voters (as African-Americans are almost always center to left voters--althought they don't always vote) :( And there is usually a tension between the urban liberal vote and the conservative rural vote. I think Indiana has fewer cities than the other states, so maybe that vote isn't as balanced there.
Me too, but that isn't the point. We're talking social improvement here.
No no no, but the far right is, and by turning gay they would certainly improve society. At least they'd then have to stop bashing on gays.
You need to relearn the political spectrum. True "far right" politics would take the position that the government has no business recognizing or giving privledge to certain forms of marriage.
I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, but also believe that the government has no business dictating what constitutes the legal form of marriage. Really, if you think about it 9/10 "benefits" afforded to married couples are government benefits. Let's just get rid of it all, then society would figure it out on it's own.
You are more or less a Libertarian. I don't consider you to be on the far right. You are more or less in a class by yourselves one or two steps removed from Anarchists. (Who are usually considered very extreme left). However this is splitting hairs. You know very well who the people I'm proposing to turn gay are. They aren't Libertarians who are often wacky, but generally tolerable. :)
See, I view the political spectrum from right to left as to how much government a particular political ideology supports. So, you'd have something like this, moving from right (ironically on the left part of this page) to left (on the right part)
Anarchy->Anarcho-capitalist->Libertarian->True Conservatism->Moderate->Republican0>Liberal/Socialist->Democrat->Facists/Communists->Kings/Dictators So, really, Libertarians are pretty far right wing.
And kings are on the extreme left??? Ok, that is a new world view for me.
Well, they are in complete control, and everything is owned by the king. That's even more control than communists, so I put them at the left end of the spectrum.
the political spectrum is not just a line. It's more of a plane. The left and right indicate liberal and conservative, and the top and bottom indicate authoritarian or libertarian.
Yah, I've seen the Advocates for Self Government poll too. I can see their logic too, but most people seem to think that political ideology is either a line or a circle.
that's your Libertarian bias speaking. contrary to what your misguided principles may tell you, Liberals are not about complete government control of property or wealth.
Um, which is exactly why I put liberals after Republicans, but before Democrats, and well before facists/socialists/totalitarians. I tend to separate conservatives and liberals from the two political parties which are both really socialist.
Where exactly did I equate liberals with complete government control of property or wealth?
Well, that works if you look at politics as a circle rather than a line. Think of one end of that as the anarchists. They tend to come from the far left on one end, and the far right on the other. Both want to do away with government, but one is more so that there is a complete free-market system, and the other wants what could best be described as a series of communes. It works the same way on the other end. It's like comparing Stalin and Hitler (to go for the most obvious examples) One was communist, one was fascist, but when it came down to it, they were not all that far apart. In the end, I think this comes down to the shaped Zaques was talking about. (which, by the way, I see most often used by libertarians to try and show people that's where they fit).
Or you could just use the sphere model I worked out the one day we were talking about this. Used a d20 as a model, didn't I?
Yeah, I think you did.
I wanted to use the sphere, but I couldn't remember where I'd heard it and wanted to give credit where it was due ;-)
AUGH! Please refer to this:
http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html it puts the politiical spectrum into a diamond shape, and makes a hell of a lot more sense than trying to put everyone on a reight-left line, which obviously doesn't work. :P 
I'm a left-liberal a bit up to the libertarian side, which is pretty much right on, considering that there are no questions about education.
I like the fact that the state's rights crowd now has conservatives and potheads arguing for the same cause.
Gella's trying to turn US gay, er bi. You know, for her, I'd think about it. ;)
So, it's okay for you to bash right wing Christians for being who they are, but not okay for them to bash homosexuals for being who they are. That makes no sense.
Quite frankly, you're trying to force your views of the world down on others, so how does that make you any better than right wing Christians who do the same? I got a better idea, let's ban the use of force from all human relationships.
> So, it's okay for you to bash right wing Christians for being who they are, but not
> okay for them to bash homosexuals for being who they are. That makes no sense. On one side you have people who were born a certain way who are being deprived of equal rights because of this. On the other side, you have people who have chosen a hateful political stance and seek to deprive others of the rights they deserve. Guess which one I'm going to be bashing?
I'm not going to argue that religious right wing Christians who want to make homosexuality a crime are doing more hateful things. However, as a libertarian Josh, I would have thought you could see that trying to either a) keep state-sanctioned "legal" marriage between a man or a woman, or b) trying to make the state sanction same-sex marriage, both use the force of government to enforce someone's opinions on everyone else, which is an equally reprehensible act.
Simple solution is to get the government OUT of marriage and all the privledges that go along with it, then tiny number of private-sector privledges would be sorted out by themselves (for example, some insurance companies would cover same-sex marriages, others may not).
I agree completely that the government should be out of the marriage business. However, seeing as how this will never happen in our lifetimes, I'm suggesting a fix for the problem at hand. I find it better to support a feasable fix rather than leaving a broken law in place while we wait for something that will probably never happen.
If there ever is a serious movement to de-governmentize marriage, I'd be right there on the bandwagon. But damnit, let's take steps in the right direction in the meantime.
So, you're willing to compromise your beliefs for political expediency? That's how we got in the mess we're in. I find it better to strive for what is right than to compromise with what is wrong.
If I jab a fork into your leg, are you going to stand up and walk to the police station to demand that they arrest me, or are you going to yank the fork out of your leg and then worry about the bigger picture?
That makes NO sense.
You want to use the force of government to force people to treat gay marriage as legally the same as straight marriage . How is that any different, fundamentally, than using the force of government to ban gay marriage?
Talcott
· 21 years, 2 months ago
...where the term "Traditional Definiton of Marriage" comes from?
Last I checked, that definiton was just the joining to two things. "Male" and "Female" have nothing to do with it. And all of that said, since when was language an objective, stagnant, thing. "Book" does not mean a "series of pages bound together" anymore than it means "the day when robots take over Rhode Island". It's just a series of sounds that was have attatched a meaning to. It's useful, but it always changes. (Look at any slang term). In the end though, I side with The Daily Show: "It if's not going to be mandatory to marry someone of the same gender, then what's the big deal?"
Unfortunately:
Main Entry: mar�riage Pronunciation: 'mar-ij also 'mer- Function: noun Etymology: Middle English mariage, from Old French, from marier to marry Date: 14th century 1 a : the state of being married b : the mutual relation of husband and wife : WEDLOCK c : the institution whereby men and women are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependence for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family 2 : an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected; especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities 3 : an intimate or close union --- Thankfully, this definition is changing, and the dictionary will change with it. :)
sure, that's the current definition.
And who said that m-w.org was the end-all, be-all of the English language? ;-) Unless Marriage comes from the greek for "A man and woman bound together" or some such, then the "traditional definition" doesn't hold. And even if it does, that flys in the face of the way language works to begin with. Could any of the linguists out there help me with this? (or if I'm completly off-base, let me know ;-)
Ahh... okay, didn't realize you were talking Etymology...
marriage n. About 1300 mariage; borrowing of Old French mariage, from marier to MARRY; for suffix see -AGE -age a suffix acquired in many words borrowed from French, especially Old French, such as message, tonnage, umbrage, voyage, and extensively used in English to form nouns from other nouns, expressing various relations (as in baggage, parsonage, peerage, postage, poundage), and from verbs, expressing action or the result of action (as in breakage, cleavage, wreckage). Old French -age is from Latin -aticum, neuter of the adjective suffix aticus, that originated as the form with -a stem nouns of -ticus, from Greek -tikos. marry v. About 1300 marien to give in marriage; borrowed from Old French marier, from Latin maritare wed, marry, from maritus married man or husband; of uncertain origin (very possibly a quasi-participle with the meaning of provided with a *mari, a young woman).
No we were discussing entomology. The question is "does gay marriage bug you?"
Do I have to hide now?
I've been watching it like a hawk. I want to know how far it'll go and whether they still want to "present the results to congress".
1. Quoting the Daily Show is the way to my heart. 2. I'd prefer not to remember the great Book of 1996.� I mean, Providence was scary enough as it was.
Gordondon son of Ethelred
· 21 years, 2 months ago
Did someone give a link to hte results page and I missed it? In any even here it is: Poll Results.
Rachel Marie aka RAI
· 21 years, 2 months ago
Not all right winged Christians are hateful people. In fact, I have know plenty who are quite loving and caring, but their views on things are just different than mine. They don't force their opinions on others... basically, if they find out YOU'RE a Christian and somewhat active, they encourage you to attend meetings of their specific religious group. (Intervarsity, BASIC, Campus Crusade)... Trying to get we liberal Christians to become conservative Christians, I guess.
Also, I have met a right winged Christian gay man. Yes. That's right. He's gay. And a right winged Christian. His "solution" to the gay issue? That he must be celibate for his whole life. I think he's ridiculous. I mean, power to him, but still... he's never gonna make it. IMO.
No. No. Not power to him. You can't say that. I mean, you can... you just did... but its wrong.
What he wants to do is his decision, obviously. Celibacy is sometimes the right choice for some people... but this person is clearly doing it for the wrong reasons and it can cause nothing but harm and pain to him and to the people around him. Its not just a question of he will never make it... he will do permanent damage to himself if he tries to repress who he is and how he feels for the rest of his life trying to satisfy a worldview which is simply not reconciliable with reality. That is the problem I have with Christianity in general... but I'm not going to go deeply into that here because there's no way I can talk about how I feel about Christianity without being accused of Christian-bashing... though really I don't think that harsh criticism of Christianity as a religion is the same as Christian bashing, though I'm sure some of you would beg to differ. As most of you know, half of my extended family is Catholic and I love them very much, but I quite frankly abhor their religion.
The problem with Christianity is that the most visible and outspoken Christians don't "get it". A vast number of people who profess to be Christian are really Sunday Christians who talk the talk, but definitely don't walk the walk.
Don't judge Christians by the ultra-right wing Religious Right types out there. They do not represent what Christianity is all about. Also, don't fall into the trap that rural people are all right with Religious Right. I know lots of rural American Christians which are perfectly accepting of gays. The Christian worldview is perfectly reconcilible with reality.
Well, I gues that depends on what version of reality you subscribe to. :P
This could very well be one of the first points you have made with which I can agree entirely. The girl I'm seeing right now is very dedicated to Christianity, but she cannot stand the more well-spoken right-wing groups. They really are misinterpreting most of the lessons taught in the bible. It's sad, really. I suppose that's how religion (much like any other myth or legend) works. After so much time, people are bound to use it to simply further their own causes rather than embrace it as it should be. Of course, as a militant agnostic (I don't know and neither do you, dammit), I still don't adhere to any church or set belief. You know. Whatev.
It is similar to the idea of hating the sin and loving the sinner.
As I've made clear numerous times I have problems with all religions but not with their practitioners.
Well... sort of... but I don't like that idea.
I think its a mistake to try to separate the "sin" from the person in that sense... cause that lets you off the hook trying to reconcile the person to the action and understanding either in relation to the other, reexamining your perceptions of either the person or that which you consider the "sin", and untimately ends with no inquiry, no progress.
That sounded very interesting, but it got a bit garbled at the end. But you are right about not really being able to separate the two. I mean let's face it, we don't really love murderers in spite of their actions. If we do find ourselves sympathetic to a murderer, then it is because there was some circumstance to their crime that makes it more understandable in our eyes. Hence the sin and the sinner are not separate at all.
Hating the sin and loving the sinner is just a way of sidestepping the confrontation of the fact that some of the traditional "sins" are not sins at all, and that those ideas must be discarded. Hating gay behavior but loving gays is nonsense, because that behavior is part of who they are. If you want to love a gay person you need to stop judging his or her behavior in that way. Is that something like what you were trying to say Gella? :)
that's half of it.
The other half is that if someone whom you respect and love etc. holds what you see as a reprehensible view of something, it may be time to re-examine what you think you know of that person and maybe reconsider your respect and/or love. You have to examine both the action and the person and determine for yourself where the balance of right and wrong, or ok and not ok, or understandable and inexcusable, finally falls.
Okay, in *my* eyes, it is hate the sin, not the sinner. Not LOVE the sinner. Because you don't have to love murderers or theives or whatnot.
I learned an important lesson about this sinner-sin stuff. See, I am very pro-life, and one of my friends got an abortion. I heard a rumor about this going around. I got really worried. I felt a conflict in my morals. I talked to my... pastor-reverand guy (I call him Greg) and he gave me the "hate the sin, not the sinner" stuff. He explained that it wasn't just a throw away... it's actually about judging. See, it's not my place to judge what's a sin and what's not. Did *I* write the Bible and perform miracles? No. So judging is basically out of my jurisdiction. Even though I, personally, think that abortion is wrong, I have no right to judge my friend on said wrongness and should just be a supportive friend because I know she was going through a difficult time. When she approached me and told me that the rumors were true, I just gave her a big hug and told her that if she ever needed help to just talk to me. Anyway, I'm ranting. Sorry. :o)
Celibacy is sometimes the right choice for some people... but this person is clearly doing it for the wrong reasons and it can cause nothing but harm and pain to him and to the people around him.
Seeing as how you don't know my friend, I don't know how you can make these assumptions. He is one of the nicest, happiest people I met. He may be doing it for the wrong reasons according to YOU... but according to HIM, he's doing what's best in the eyes of God, and that makes him happy. He lives his life according to what he thinks is what God wants him to do, and because he's doing what God wants him to do, he's happy. I personally don't think he'll make it based on the fact that he flirts with one of his best friends (also gay) all the time. Not because he will do "permanent damage" to himself if he doesn't. Like I said before, what is the wrong reasons to you is the right reasons to him. He's perfectly FINE being gay and celibate. For now.
here's a question...
I'm assuming, then, that he could happily date and even marry another gay man? It's just the actual intercourse thing that he percieves as a problem?
No, he told me celibate means NOTHING. I asked him if he and his friend were dating, he said, "No, you don't understand my concept of celibate." And then we chatted until 4 AM on IM about this. :o/
well, I have mixed feelings about that... but... the bottom line is that my feelings are irrelevant.
It's his life... so whatever works for him... works for him. :) I honestly just hope he doesn't, down the road, change his mind and regret the time he spent being his version of celibate.
your friend being nice and seeming happy has nothing to do with anything. I'm sure he's a great guy. I don't know your friend, true. But I know what repression does to a person. If he's truly happy with his "choice" then why does he flirt in this way with his "best friend"? He has set for himself an unattainable goal for the sake of pleasing what he views as the highest authority concievable. What do you think will happen to him when he fails at this? When he "lets God down"? I've seen what happens when people set out to please God in impossible ways and fail. Its the kind of thing that leads to suicidal despair.
As I said, what your friend does is entirely up to him. I'm not sure he quite realizes this since he's making his choices based on what he thinks some other entity desires of him and not his own desires, but throwing away one's freedom is also a choice which, in this context, he is free to make. I wish him luck in his life but frankly I am disgusted by the idea of wishing him luck in such a self-destructive endeavor.
stealthlori
· 21 years, 2 months ago
Just thought I'd point out that over 55% of responses are "I favor the legalization of gay marriage." You know AFA is going to bury this poll deep deep deep.� Too bad they don't bury their ideology with it. 
Shouldn't someone tip off a newspaper to the way this poll is going? :)
Gordondon son of Ethelred
· 21 years, 2 months ago
The Times just published the results of a scientific poll and I am not happy about the results. 55% of the people are in favor of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriages, Only 40% oppose it. It gets worse. Only 40% of the people think homosexual relationships should be legal and 49% think they should be illegal.
I'm going to try and paste the poll here. The article can be found here 
The silver lining is that the numbers are reversed for people under 30. It is just a matter of time before their views become the norm. Polls about interacial marriage looked very similar in the fifties.
The other silver lining is that this has been a big year of progressive judicial decisions on gay rights. When the judiciary is that active, people get nervous and retreat a bit on their views. It's kind of a checks-and-balances thing on the part of the citizenry. ;)
The pro-equality numbers were a bit higher several months ago (in similar polls), before Lawrence v. Texas and the Massachusetts marriage decision were handed down. I expect that as middle-of-the-road Americans get more comfortable with the affirming positions taken by the courts -- and as they see that despite the chicken-little hysterics of AFA and such groups, civilization as they know it has not ended, only become more fair -- they will swing back into the pro-equality camp.
The other other silver lining is that those numbers don't add up to a constitutional amendment.� And, from looking at the age breakdown, it doesn't appear that they ever will.
> I am not happy about the results.
I think those results are incredibly encouraging. Look at the breakdown by age. A good majority of the young are in favor of gay rights. It trails off to 14% in the 65 and older crowd. I really doubt that it's the "young liberal phase" speaking, I really think that the older people have always felt this way. This means that as the old bigots start dying off, that percentage will improve.
pretty sure Gordon just said that... but sure it bears repeating.
Yeah youth!
The thing that surprises me the most about this poll is the Catholic-Protestant line... The Catholics seem to be more in favor of a liberal approach than the Protestants! Perhaps it's the Bible Belt talking, but still... the vatican's so vehemently against gayness, you'd think that they'd be all, "Noo! Evil!" Apparently they don't give a crap about what the pope thinks either.
Some American Catholics toe the party line, but most don't. I think you'll find that observation holds across various political issues -- practicing lay Catholics, and even many clergy, are not monolithic in their social views, whether on abortion or war or capital punishment or women clergy. And unlike the Vatican, I think most American Catholics understand the difficulty of celibacy and do not view sex and sexuality in such repressive ways.
I'd like to try to clarify the position of the Vatican a little, as I understand it. The Vatican vehemently opposes homosexuals being sexually active -- just as it opposes unmarried persons being sexually active, or the clergy being sexually active. That's a big difference from opposing a person's orientation, which they really haven't had a problem with. (Recent rumblings against gay priests being a fairly notable exception.) The Vatican doesn't argue that God didn't create people that way, or try to "convert" them to heterosexuality, or that their orientation and sexual thoughts themselves are sinful, as many fundamentalist Protestant groups do. It simply says "okay, we all have crosses to bear, temptations to fight, and one of yours is not being able to participate in Godly sexual communion." The laity just takes it one step further and says "Yeah, right, and we know we're all celibate until marriage -- we can totally imagine a lifetime of celibacy. And that thing about priests and nuns being celibate makes so much sense. So yeah, it's okay to be gay AS LONG AS YOU NEVER HAVE SEX. Shhyure. Whatever you say, John Paul." Of course, then there's the whole progressive-activist wing of the RC Church, which the Vatican (presently, at least) would like to ignore but which has a fair amount of sway.
paul
· 20 years, 10 months ago
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