Changing Tides

For the first time, a CNN poll finds a majority of Americans, 51%, favor allowing gay marriage in the United States but there are a number of caveats in the crosstabs.

Although more Americans agree on this issue, a generation-and gender-gap still remains. Sixty percent of Americans under 50 support same-sex marriage, but only four in ten of those over 50 feel the same. More than half of men are against legalizing marriage between gay or lesbian couples, but 57 percent of women are in favor of it.


There's also a partisan divide on the issue. "More than six in 10 Democrats support same sex marriage, joined by more than half of independents, but seven in 10 Republicans are against it," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

The poll comes out just after Speaker of the House John Boehner moved to hire a conservative lawyer to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in a pending lawsuit. The Obama administration said it believed that DOMA to be unconstitutional and would no longer have the Justice Department defend it in federal courts.

Also in the poll, 41% of Americans favor legalizing marijuana.  Older Americans and Republicans are staunch opponents of both ideas, while self-declared liberals, college graduates, and people under 50 are proponents of both ideas.

This means as time marches on, both of these will be legalized at the federal level.  It may or may not happen in my lifetime (I think it will) but it will happen.