A CBS poll has yielded some surprising results. 51 percent of Americans believe in making gay marriage legal. Washington, Maine and Maryland recently approved measures to legalize same-sex marriage. That makes it legal in nine states plus the District of Columbia. Not surprising is that most of the support, 72 percent, comes from young Americans ages 18-29. As age increases, support decreases dramatically. Only one-third of seniors 65 and older approve. In 2011, a Gallup poll showed that 53 percent of Americans agreed with legalization.
Passing same-sex marriage laws will only help the country, especially children. In many counties/states, gay couples can't adopt children. There is no reason why so many children have to stay in a corrupt and sometimes abusive foster care system when safe and loving homes are available! Taking away the stigma of homosexuality could also help children already born to gay parents by decreasing bullying. Marriage benefits for gay couples also benefit children by increasing the amount of health care they may be able to receive. The result of granting these rights is that people will no longer have legal recourse to discriminate
Gay marriage doesn't hurt society and obviously, the American public is finally starting to see that. Only 40 percent of those polled did not think it should be legal. People certainly have every right to disagree with it, although without suffering from repercussions similar to what the COO of Chick-fil-A faced. However, trying to force those views on such a large group of people is unfair and discriminatory. The Supreme Court is currently deciding whether or not to consider reviewing California's Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act. If they do, they will be hard-pressed to find a reason to deny the wishes of the majority of American citizens.
Photo credit: Reason
© Margie Wilson-Mars 2012
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Comments: 26
We already have our own firmly held opinions - so we don't need any of your stupid facts getting in our way.
I'll go take someone else's meds and be back soon.
My husband - who is nearly 80 - voted "yes". Although I believe you are correct that the Majority are young people voting for it, there are still enough of us over fifty year olds agreeing.
I would like to believe, that for us "older folks" - shows like Modern Family might have a positive influence in these areas. The more something becomes accepted in a mainstream way - such as on a popular t.v. series - the more natural it starts feeling.
Being "gay" isn't a "choice" - it's not a decision. It's biology. Why should people be penalized for the way they are born? Yeah - go ahead - throw those Bible quotes this way. I still applaud the decision to allow gays to marry, adopt as a family, and have all the other rights given to married couples.
Thank you, Margie. I appreciate that someone with basically conservative leanings can acknowledge this.
In my view gay marriage is a sham that cries out for intervention by the clear thinkers in this country. And if passed than allowing gays to adopt will be the next mistake. Raising impressionable children in a gay household will not only influence the child in the early years of growth about traditional male-female sexuallity, but most likely generate more gays, and add to that-some explaining to do when the child has to respond to his or her friends about why mommy, and daddy are both males, or females.
And, no, there is no evidence that kids raised by gay parents become gay. Clearly, gay kids raised by straight parents didn't become straight.
And, unless you live under a rock in some back-water village, kids in school today come from a wide variety of families - many of whom products of divorce, or second families, single parents, adopted, inter-racial families, being raised by grandparents, and on and on. There are many same-sex couples with kids living in suburbia. This is nothing new and most kids, unless they were raised by bigots, don't think anything about it.
Anyway, if you take the time to look at the scientific studies done...not ones on conservative OR liberal websites...you will find that there is no or very little increased instance of the children growing up to be homosexual or sexually promiscuous. As for kids teasing the children of gay parents, I believe once it is legal and not labeled as something 'bad', it won't be an issue.
Just my opinion!
Should churches and privately owned venues be legally forced to participate in interracial or non-white marriages? Or do you - rightly or wrongly - label these false equivalencies?
Also, above you note the repercussions suffered by Chick-fil-a for financial support of organisations opposed to gay rights - apparently at least one of which supports the pending(?) death-for-gays in Uganda legislation?
It is in question whether Chick-fil-a suffered financially: supporters showing up en masse (so to type;-) may have actually benefited them.
So would you extend your rationale to the efforts of The Right Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior, and that civil rights movement? That the very many - including christians - who opposed African-American equality were also suffering victims of boycotts and other actions seeking redress?
We pay taxes, so why are our tax dollars only subsidizing straight families and not ours?
And it is not just marriage where we need civil rights. In more than half of the states a person can be fired, solely for being gay.
It is time for discrimination against America's lgbt citizens to end. We are no longer merely asking for our civil rights. We are demanding them. They are not up for debate.
And we will not stop fighting until every gay citizen of this country has the equal rights that we deserve.
@leliorisen
Why fire him when he is winning almost every game they play?
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8695613/vcu-rams-volleyball-coach-james-finley-says-was-fired-gay
Some changes are meant to be while others are a travesty!
I thought "morals" were thinks like honesty, compassion, etc. - not gender or sexual orientation based.
Pleasantville no longer exists - the days of Father Knows Best were always fictional, anyway.
I have a friend, Heather - whose dog I walk a few days a week while she works in D.C. Her dad is gay. Our family met their family a few decades ago, when we all went to Grace and St. Peter's church in Baltimore. Back then, they were Mom and Pop and three kids.
Fast forward 25 years. We had long left the Church for various reasons. A friend tells me about a dog he walks, a job he needs to quit because his other job's hours are being extended. He gives my number to Heather. I meet her and the dog, take the job. I meet her dad - who lives in the same house, in a downstairs apartment - with his "partner". He recognizes me from all those years back, from Church.
They left the Church, too. And he divorced - because he finally decided he couldn't live a lie anymore. He was gay. Had always been. The TRAVESTY was his former marriage. That was a Sham. His ex-wife knew it, too - the whole time. But it was more important for her to "look" like a regular family. When he could no longer play, the marriage was over.
All three of the children - now adults - support their dad. Now that gay marriage is legal in Maryland, he and his partner plan to get married. Both are in their sixties.
This is not really a "change" - it's simply a recognition of what has always been here - allowing it the same rights as every other couple has.
Your mindset being the same that previously oppressed women in this country, and African-American slaves - & later treated them as 2nd class citizens.
Widespread anti-Jewish sentiment, herding Native Americans onto reservations, riots in a number of U.S.A. cities against catholics, driving "the heathen Chinee" out of towns, ad nauseum.
Despite the protestations of your mindset that the discrimination against every group is different, new, & improved!, an approximation is exemplified by only a handful of U.S.A. states never having anti-miscegenation laws. Which means laws barring inter-racial marriage. Source
Your undying malice comes from your willful ingorunce.