So, not sure if anyone in the media remembers, but on November 4, 2008 this guy Barack Obama sort of won the presidency. And in a distinct change from 2000 and 2004, he kind of won with a mandate. The election went 53-46% in his favor. Some people in the media were even honest about it, pointing out that it was in fact a mandate. Says CBS:
The sheer size of the victory would be mandate enough, but Obama’s is a promise of fundamental, radical change, not incremental adjustments, giving even more impetus to his agenda.
They also said:
Now, with an election victory the size of which has been unseen in presidential election in decades, this young President-elect has the expectations of that lineage to fulfill.
So, obviously 53-46 is big. The country spoke and it wanted change. It signed onto a drastic and far reaching mandate which would transform the entire country into something better than it has ever been. ABC refers to it as a "mandate" and a "landslide" which will "define a generation."
Given the enormity of the mandate and the obvious (and rare) consensus of the media, and their acknowledgment that it means massive change for the future and not only that, but change America wants, it is interesting to watch numbers slowly lose their meaning.
Apparently, a very, very tiny majority of Americans support gay marriage. Just a little, slim one. 53-44% was the small amount of people who support gay marriage. A slim majority indeed. And not only that, but watch this:
A slim majority of Americans now support gay marriage, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The results underscore the nation’s increasingly tolerant views about homosexuals, and parallel a string of recent legal and legislative victories for gay rights advocates.
See what they did there? Whereas the Obama mandate was a sweeping repudiation of past beliefs and a clear and decisive moment in history that signals Americans' interest in changing the country into something entirely new, this poll, with its bigger margin of a mandate, just shows a increase in a bit of tolerance to "homosexuals." Cool, huh? Numbers actually mean less in 2011 than they did just a few short years ago.
And then, of course, anti-gay groups are upset at the suggestion (in the poll question) that gay marriage is currently illegal in many states (which it is) and, the media comes back with:
Post-ABC News polls have used the same “legal or illegal” wording in every poll about same-sex marriage since 2003. Other surveys by the Pew Research Center, the Associated Press and CNN show similar trends.
Oh, y'know, they used the same wording, so this is definite proof of a "trend." That's a little strange. I found the poll to be strong evidence of a mandate for gay marriage, going by silly stuff like the same numbers mentioned by the same media outlets just a few years ago in relation to a clear mandate. But I guess it's not clear evidence of any kind of mandate. It's a sign that we'll get there. One day. Maybe. We're "trending" that way. Yay. Right now it's just a tiny slim little insignificant majority, but one day, one day I tell you, it will be big. And it will be a sign, a sign that the trends... are still going in that direction. Because, we can't ever be too cautious when the topic is toleration of homosexuals.
Or do I have it all wrong? Did they perhaps interview a lot of skinny people for the poll? Were the majority of pro-gay responders significantly underweight, maybe? I can only guess.
The mind boggles.