And these points of data make a beautiful line...
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -Gandhi
Yes, those numbers are quite real. Today, CNN released the fourth major poll showing that opponents of same-sex marriage are now a minority:
The trendline — derived through regression smoothing — estimates that about 50 percent of Americans now support gay marriage and that 46 percent are opposed, with a small percentage of voters undecided. By contrast, at this time two years ago, the numbers were 42 percent in favor and 53 percent opposed, according to the same technique.
The change — about a 4 percentage-point shift in favor of gay marriage in each of the last two years — is about double the longer-term rate of progress for supporters of gay marriage, which has been between 1 and 2 percentage points per year.
There is a margin of error associated with the calculation of the trendline, so it is too soon to say with confidence that support for gay marriage has become the plurality position (let alone the majority one). Other polls — like a Pew survey released in March — continue to show opinion split about evenly.
However, opponents of gay marriage almost certainly no longer constitute a majority; just one of the last nine polls has shown opposition to gay marriage above 50 percent.
Funny thing, isn't it? It's almost like, by pushing a simple idea relentlessly, a once-fringe cause changed the way the mainstream thinks.
This is why my biggest advice to anyone getting disillusioned with politics is to stick with it, to accept that losing battles is part of the war, especially when you're fighting uphill. The important thing is to keep moving.
Same-sex marriage initiatives have had many defeats, and plenty of mistakes, but its advocates have continued to push. A ballot measure fails? Take it to the courts. One state bans gay marriage? Fight to legalize it in another. Eventually, something will stick.
Right now, few states allow gay marriage, but each time one does, and the world does not end, support ticks upward. It happens enough, and opposition begins to collapse. That's how you win a cultural battle.
There are a number of factors behind that rapidly rising support, but that commitment to making a simple right reality is key. One of the smartest moves the LGBT rights movement ever made was a refusal to hide and, over four decades after Stonewall, that's sapped much of the stigma that is the opposition's greatest strength. It's harder to be a bigot to your neighbor's face.
Pundits and commentators love to talk of mainstream culture as something immutable, with various "others" circling around it in supine orbit.
No. No trend is forever, no idea is invulnerable, no institution is invincible. Every last one of them relies on human beings. Humans who can and will change their minds. If people actually go to the trouble of making a once-radical idea workable, it can become tomorrow's mainstream.
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