In other shocking news, the sky is blue, water is wet, and the Pope is Catholic.
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Wanted to let that sink in. Amendment 1 reads, in full:
"Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State. This section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts"This can, and will, continue to happen in any state that it comes up for the foreseeable future, even though a slim (but increasing) plurality (or majority, it depends on the poll) support gay marriage. It isn't a question of a base of support, it's a question of enthusiasm. The fact is, most Americans just don't care. It might affect someone they know, but for the vast majority of Americans it isn't an issue that has any impact in their lives one way or the other.
So let's look at the polling. So far, this year, there have been 4 polls conducted on the subject. The average support works out to 49.5% in favor of gay marriage and 43.75% opposed to gay marriage (or in favor of traditional marriage if you prefer to frame the question that way).
(As an aside, I'll be using the gay marriage/traditional marriage framing, this post is not an argument for either side, my opinion on the issue has nothing to do with this post, so I'll be keeping the wording as neutral as possible.)
For the sake of simplicity let's say the entire GLBT community gets fired up in favor of gay marriage every time it comes up and the entire evangelical community gets fired up to support traditional marriage. Neither of those assumptions is remotely accurate, but it makes it easy to illustrate my point. That gives us voting blocks of ~5% of the population fired up in favor of gay marriage and ~15% fired up in favor of traditional marriage.
What this means is that, even if ~50% favor gay marriage, they're still facing 3-1 opposition where it counts. 3 times as many evangelicals from the Christian Right are going to be out there raising funds, stumping for votes, and voicing their cause. This is not an insurmountable opposition, but it is an opposition that requires substantial effort to face The movement for gay marriage needs and, frankly, deserves more than pithy Facebook posts made 2 days before a critical vote or, worse, the day after.
In short, those who support gay marriage need to stop being surprised that they lose these votes (and in NC they lost big, 61% - 39%). For years, a lot of effort has been spent dismissing the concept of a "homosexual agenda". All gay people want is to get married and be left alone they say. Well, the fact is, everyone has an agenda, and that's not a bad thing. In the modern society, nothing gets accomplished without solid planning and the leg work to back it up.
Maybe it's time gay marriage supporters accept that they need an agenda if they expect to get anything accomplished.
