TPM REPORT - With the Supreme Court now at least considering a definitive statement in favor of gay marriage and support for marriage equality now practically a litmus test issue for Democratic politicians, Americans across the political spectrum are expressing surprise at how rapidly this once marginalized idea became something like a national consensus.
Though equality remains law in fewer than a dozen states and no one is holding their breath to get gay married in Alabama or Arkansas, everybody gets that the debate is largely over. Even archconservative thought leader Rush Limbaugh has admitted it’s only a matter of time. But if you were surprised at how quickly marriage equality happened, get ready for another shock: pot’s going to be legal too. The same demographic and cultural changes that propelled marriage equality to majority status are already pushing support for legal pot to the same place.
TPM analyzed all available, nationwide polling data on the questions of full marijuana legalization and marriage equality for the past 18 years and found public opinion on the two issues has taken a nearly identical trajectory.
In the mid-1990’s, average public support and opposition for both marriage equality and marijuana legalization was at fairly similar levels. In 1995, 25 percent of those polled supported marijuana legalization while 73 percent opposed it. One year later, 27 percent of people polled backed marriage equality while 68 percent were against it. Over the next decade and change support for both marriage equality and marijuana legalization grew to similar levels.
Currently, an average of 50.6 percent of people polled this year support gay marriage and 42.6 percent oppose it. The most recent polling on marijuana legalization is from last year and shows average support at 48.5 percent and average opposition at 48 percent. (Read the rest … including the reasons for the fast growing acceptance … here.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 28
Pub: Apr 5, 2013
