Toklas Club on McGovern LA journalist Karen Ocamb has posted a fascinating recounting of the little known connections between the late George McGovern and the infant gay civil rights movement. Much of it concerns the environs of the Democratic Party, circa 1972. During the presidential primaries, the Alice B. Toklas Club in San Francisco was [...]
The most recent opinion poll on relationship and marriage rights for same-sex couples illustrates what a cat's cradle this issue is right now. Associated Press, which co-sponsored the poll with the National Constitution Center, reports that 53% favor relationship recognition with equal rights; 44% oppose 42% favor states allowing same-sex marriage; 45% oppose 48% favor [...]
The Pew Foundation, one of the nation's most respected survey research organizations, issued a report today confirming what several recent media polls have shown: that public support for same-sex marriage is steadily increasing. The Pew data provide demographic breakdowns showing that this support is growing in each subgroup of the population, although at different rates. [...]
NYU Political Science Professor Patrick Egan has studied 10 years worth of public opinion polling conducted during election campaigns involving same-sex marriage ballot questions, and found that such polls (even those conducted just before election day) consistently overestimate voter support for gay marriage. Comparing pre-election polls with the election results, Professor Egan's study concluded that [...]
A new report entitled Moving_the_Middle_on_Marriage, from a DC think tank, argues that the key to success in lgbt efforts to persuade voters to support equal marriage rights is to show "that allowing gay couples to marry won't change the tradition [of marriage] or how their kids perceive it." The report is based on polls conducted [...]
According to an article in the current American Political Science Review (103 APSR 367), popular support for enacting anti-discrimination and relationship recognition laws is significantly ahead of legislative action in most states. The authors find "a surprising amount of noncongruence [between public opinion and policy adoption]—for some policies, even clear supermajority support seems insufficient for [...]