Two new polls released this week seem to indicate that public opinion in California is slowly, slowly shifting towards an acceptance of gay marriage — despite the defeat of Proposition 8 two years ago.
A Field Poll on Tuesday showed that if a vote was held on Proposition 8 now, 51 percent of all Californians would vote it down. Then yesterday the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI)released a survey showing, among other findings, that 51 percent of Californians would vote to approve same-sex marriages if given the chance and only 22 percent of Californians believe Proposition 8 has been a good thing for California.
Proposition 8 passed in November 2008 by 52.24 percent to 47.76 percent. Most analysts credit the win to rabidly anti-gay forces from outside the state who spent $40 million — much it raised deceptively by the Mormon Church — on false advertising, particularly on ads that suggested that failure to pass the amendment would somehow force schools to “teach” gay marriage — even though marriage, per se, of any sort is nowhere to be found on the state’s school curricula.
Early in 2008, polls showed conflicting views on gay marriage in California. A Los Angeles Times poll released in early May 2008 indicated that 54 percent of voters favored a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. But a Field Poll the next week found opposition to a (then proposed) ballot initiative to end gay marriage at 54 – 40 percent among voters.
In late November 2008, less than a month after Prop 8 passed, 8 percent of voters said they’d had buyer’s remorse and would switch their “yes” vote on Prop 8 to end gay marriage to “no,” if they could have.
Nationwide, gay marriage has twice the support now that interracial marriage had when the Supreme Court legalized it in the 1960s.
