GAY MARRIAGE: OBAMA VERSUS THE AMERICAN PEOPLE…

Sadly for some, but not for many more, Tuesday ended up as a rather disappointing day for gay rights advocates who had hoped to see North Carolina voters reject a state constitutional amendment aimed at legally preventing gay matrimony. The provision, which inevitably passed by a rather large margin, now makes North Carolina the 30th state to implement a ban on same-sex marriage. But with gay marriage continuing to be a hot topic of conversation in the sociopolitical sphere, and with legislative battles still raging, it’s paramount to examine where the nation stands on the issue as a whole. And it is important to remember that many court battles potentially lie ahead of us. Because it’s something we need to keep in mind when we go to the polls this November.

It was also on Tuesday that Gallup released its annual research results that explore the American peoples’ views on gay marriage. It was last year that the numbers indicated, for the first time since Gallup began asking questions about same-sex marriage, that more than 50 percent of the American public supported legalizing gay unions, 53 percent to be exact. Now considering the ongoing fight for marriage equality, one would expect to see this proportion of support to continue to rise. Consider the way the numbers have changed over the past 15 years. In 1996, only 27 percent of the nation supported gay marriage. By 2004, this proportion had grown to 42 percent. With last year’s growth, it seemed as though pro-same-sex marriage sentiment was only headed upward. Not so!

But in looking at the numbers from Gallup’s 2012 research, what we see is that those numbers actually show a minor decline in this sentiment. While support dropped three points to 50 percent, the results would seem to provide a rather mixed bag when it comes to the overall landscape. Fifty percent of Americans believe same-sex marriages should be recognized by law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages, down slightly from 53% last year, but marking only the second time in Gallup’s history of tracking this question that at least half of Americans have supported legal same-sex marriage. Forty-eight percent say such marriages should not be legal. So once again we see an area where we are quite literally teetering on the edge.

Considering well-known trends, the partisan breakdown surrounding the issue of gay marriage isn’t surprising. While nearly two-thirds of Democrats support legalization and more than half, 57 percent, of Independents agree, Republicans are the least supportive. In the same study, which was conducted from May 3 through the 6, only 22 percent of GOP adherents report supporting same-sex unions. And when it comes to faith, which is yet another stark determinant of opinion on this complex issue, Gallup found the non-religious to be the most accepting of gay marriage (88 percent said it should be legal). Additionally, a pattern of rejection can be seen among churchgoers. The more someone attends a house of worship, the less likely it appears that he or she is willing to say that gay marriage should be legalized.

I mentioned earlier that I think it very safe to say that many potential court battles lie ahead regarding this issue. And most likely, at some point, it’s going to be heard by the Supreme Court. Which is yet another issue that has to be in the forefront of our minds when we troop off to vote this November. We are essentially one Supreme Court Justice away from making gay marriage the law of the land. And this is exactly where Barry is wishing to take us. If he is re-elected, and without having another election to be concerned about, he will be totally off the chain. I shudder to think about what would be left of this country after an eight year reign of Barack Hussein Obama. Our country would be totally unrecognizable. And as I have mentioned numerous times before, I simply haven’t got any faith left that the American people will be able to figure things out.