One hundred percent of the people in this photo are against marriage equality, so according to the logic of the religious right, the American people are urgently against marriage equality.
In the history of useless polls,
this one must rank pretty high:
Two conservative groups are pushing back on moves by the GOP to drop opposition to same-sex marriage from party platforms, releasing a poll of base voters taken last month that found in favor of defining marriage “only” as between a man and a woman.
The poll, commissioned by groups led by conservatives Gary Bauer and Tony Perkins, runs counter to a wide variety of opinion polls that show movement on the question of same-sex marriage, with more voters favoring it than opposing it.
The reason it runs counter to broader surveys: The poll surveyed Republicans and Republican-leaners instead of the whole country. So it's not exactly a surprise that
three-quarters of the people who responded to the poll said they don't think "politicians should support the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples."
But even though the poll only asked a narrow slice of the public for their views, that didn't stop its sponsors from extrapolating the results to the country as a whole (my emphasis):
Bauer, the president of American Values, faulted a “misinformation campaign waged by media elites” and insisted that “public policy-makers are doing a great disservice to themselves and future generations by continuing to misread the convictions of the American people … this survey should remind political and cultural leaders that this debate is far from over. If anything, it is taking on a new sense of urgency for millions of men and women of faith.”
Actually, Gary, this survey does no such thing. If anything, it's a reminder that the GOP base is still behind the times. If he's truly interested in what "the American people" think, he should look at polls of the entire country. And the good news for those of us who support marriage equality is this:
the country is on our side.