A new poll by the Public Religion Institute of 1007 adults confirms what the two other most recent 2011 polls on same-sex marriage have shown: A majority of the American people believe that people should have the right to marry whom they choose regardless of sex.
All in all, do you strongly favor, favor, oppose or strongly oppose allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry?
Favor: 51%, Oppose: 43%
PRRI (pdf)
Not only does this poll show a majority; it shows that those opposed are no longer close -- beyond the margin of error. Look at all the polling for 2011:
Organization |
Favor - Oppose |
Date |
PRRI |
51% - 43% |
5/18 |
CNN |
51% - 47% |
4/13 |
ABC/WaPo |
53% - 44% |
3/10 |
Pew |
45% - 46% |
3/1 |
General Social Survey |
46% - 40% |
2/25 |
The average gap between those who favor marriage equality and those who don't is 5.0%, and an approximate margin of error for all these polls aggregated would be less than 2%.
You might think that with this kind of result coming out again and again, marriage equality opponents would stop trying to push their homophobic agenda so hard. Ha!
Even as you read this, the Minnesota legislature is debating putting an amendment to their constitution on the ballot defining marriage as solely between a man and a woman. It is likely to pass today, ensuring that Minnesotans will vote on it in November, 2004 2012.
The North Carolina legislature is also considering a similar amendment.
And with the defeat of a marriage equality bill in Maryland, and surrender in Rhode Island, not a single state legislature is currently considering marriage equality. (the New York legislature may -- may -- take up a bill in June).
A caution: these polls survey Americans, not registered or likely voters. So while there is little doubt that the majority of Americans support same-sex marriage, the battle has not yet necessarily been won amongst those who actually go out and cast ballots.
Translating what the majority of Americans believe into law is not going to be an easy process. It's likely going to have to be fought for state legislator by state legislator, and defended ballot initiative by ballot initiative.
But it will happen.
Here's Nate Silver's now iconic graph without this latest result factored in. This result would probably push the blue line just barely over 50%, and the red line another notch lower.