I find myself worrying how this will manifest itself in this year's elections. While I, perhaps too gleefully, celebrate the defeats dealt to professional hatemongers like Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown, there's still an electoral backlash that they and their ilk will be only too happy to stir up.

I strongly suspect that the 55% who support equality are not equally distributed across all election districts. Those deep-red areas will be just as deep-red this year. And the desperation level of the "losers" will be far more motivating for them to come out to the polls to register their displeasure at the changes in America, than it will be for those 55% to vote. Which means, that unless liberals and equality-supporters are motivated to vote with some intensity, the "losers" will snatch themselves an electoral victory this year.

Register, goddammit, and don't fucking forget to vote! And let's not get too tied up in inside-baseball and "they're all the same." Keep it simple. Vote against anything on the Republican ticket or supported by Republicans. Hold your nose and vote Democratic, even if you have to hold it so tight you cut off the circulation.

Wonder how it breaks down by region? OK Sloggers, which state will be next to approve same sex marriage?

"However, Republicans have nearly doubled their support since the firm began tracking." That may be the population with the biggest change. Admittedly, 15% to 30% doesn't sound great, but once it gets to say 40-45% in conservative areas, game over!

Well, there was that poll of supposed swing states that showed 52% opposed.

I remember once on a trip back from college talking with my father about marriage equality and gay rights, and he was firmly in the "I have no problem with gays, but they should keep it a secret and out of my face" camp. This was about ten years ago.

This Mother's day we all drove together to visit my grandmother and he was proudly showing off the blue and yellow equality sticker he put on the coffee thermos he brings everywhere he goes (including the construction sites he works at).

Amazing how fast things can change.

See Seattleblues, this is why your kind just keeps losing. It is not a shadowy perverted minority that is changing the landscape. Just normal, decent people who are realizing what is right. I hope one day you can get outside of yourself and join in the fight for equal rights, just as my father did.

It's kind of loaded language to compare "same sex couples" with "traditional marriages". Is that because they need to ask the exact same question as in 1996?

Wonder how it breaks down by region? OK Sloggers, which state will be next to approve same sex marriage?

Wonder how it breaks down by region? OK Sloggers, which state will be next to approve same sex marriage?

@5 I would love to see a poll like this that tracks data by age over time, so that you could compare the answers of 40-50 year olds in 1996 to 60-70 year olds now. My guess is that you would see steady gains within an age group, showing that the increased support for marriage equality is not simply due to the old "antis" dying off, but to changing (evolving) attitudes like your dad's.

@10, only time will tell, but I think the cat's out of the bag with gay marriage. Bring public is such a fundamental part of the gay rights movement that it'll be hard to shame people back into the closet. Abortion even at its height was something that was kept private. How many women do you know who are open about getting an abortion? If anything I think we in the pro-choice community have to take this lesson to heart and start normalizing abortion in public conversation like any health issue such as mammograms or colonoscopy.

Shhh, he thinks it's just a 3% minority of people who don't exist forcing their agenda down the throats of other people by tricking them into supporting an end to marriage as we know it!

@12 It's not just a 3% minority; they also have ideological, activist judges appointed by George W. Bush and endorsed by Rick Santorum. Is that a stealth campaign, or what?

Another difference between SSM and abortion is that many pro choice people are not actually in "favour" of abortion - we just think it's something women have a right to, if it's the right choice for them. Me, I'd rather see fewer unwanted pregnancies than more abortions, and I don't think I'm alone in that.

Most women who have abortions do so in difficult circumstances. Although it's important and necessary that abortion be available, you're not going to find cheering happy crowds celebrating most abortions. It's a lot more "It was the right thing to do" than it is "Hey, congratulations!" You get a lot better photo ops from happy couples in love than you do from relieved women with a burden lifted.

In the long view it's been a slow and steady trend all these years, being driven from the bottom up, and what seems like rapid change now is just the tippping point.

@10 This is true. In the late 80s, young me was all "I believe in equal rights for gay people, except marriage. That's different somehow." In the mid 90s, I changed my mind and felt it was an equal protection issue and same-sex couples deserved marriage as a matter of constitutional law. In the mid 2000s, I married a guy.

Oops, I meant to direct my comment @9.

I love the shout out to SB.

Well done Americans. Having come of age in the 70s, witnessing the first explosion of gay rights- thru the horrors of Aids / governments refusals to investigate, while so so many people were dying. It is heart warming to see / hear you guys are slowly, slowly normalizing peoples rights to love and marry as they choose.. Here in Australia.. Not happening legally at ALL yet. What a backward country we are, in that respect..

Well , perhaps explosion of gays coming out- correct wording.

Ms Lava - Well, at least it's somewhat encouraging that her anti-gay activism seems to have done no good for Mrs Court (at least from my vantage point; yours is obviously better). And you seem closer than we do to national legislative success.

@ 10 - An obvious difference between abortion and same sex marriage that Dan an other have pointed out is that everyone came out of the closet and now most people know/love/respect someone who is gay and wants to marry. Another big difference between abortion is that with same sex marriage the opposition largely relied on phony facts and bogus studies. A lot of people were afriad of things that simply weren't real. now that states are legalizing same sex marriage and the sky isn't falling their arguments are falling apart. This is in contract to abortion. No matter where you stand, legalizing abortion really does lead to the availability of legal abortions...