...When USA Today asks whether gay marriage is a private decision, or rather whether government has the right to pass laws which regulate it, 63 percent say it's a private decision. This contrasts significantly with all other polling on gay marriage. The highest level of support gay marriage has received in the more traditional, positive-rights framing is 49 percent, from a ABC/Washington Post poll in late April. The average support is closer to about 41-42 percent. And indeed, this same survey organization, Gallup, last month released a poll that put the number of Americans approving of gay marriage at 40 percent. ...

The better argument against my interpretation of this poll is that it's contradicted by other evidence. Namely, last November in California, a state whose highest court had indeed ruled that gay marriage was protected by the state's constitution, some 52 percent of the electorate decided that they knew better, and that Adam and Steve would have to catch the next available flight to Burlington, Vermont.

But even though gay marriage had already become -- however briefly -- the law of the land in California, that wasn't how the debate unfolded on Proposition 8.

Labels: gay marriage, Proposition 8

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