Posted on 06/01/2015 11:47:22 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Interesting not only as a prediction of how the country will react to SCOTUS’s looming decision but as a gut-check on how little most people seem to care about procedural niceties, at least on a highly visible issue like SSM. It’s a core conservative belief that major policy changes are more legitimate when they’re passed democratically, signifying the consent of the people, than when they’re handed down by unelected judges. That’s especially true for changes to marriage, which, in the immortal purple prose of Hillary Clinton, can be traced to “the mists of history as one of the founding, foundational institutions of history and humanity and civilization.” I figured there’d be some small but significant chunk of SSM supporters who, while backing the concept in principle, find the thought of it being imposed on unwilling states by judicial decree so obnoxious that they’d oppose a Supreme Court ruling on the matter even while rooting for those unwilling states’ legislatures to come around.
Nope. Here’s what happened when Quinnipiac asked people if they support letting gay couples marry:
And here’s how the numbers changed, or didn’t change, when they followed up by asking if they’d support a Supreme Court ruling granting gay couples a constitutional right to marry. Big difference in those two questions, obviously, if you know your civics. Not only is a SCOTUS decision undemocratic, a decision based on the Constitution is irreversible through democratic means. And yet:
Only among men and Republicans does opposition rise meaningfully in the case of a court decision, and even there it’s a modest five points. Among women, the numbers don’t move at all. And in both cases, the topline figures are strikingly similar to what Gallup found last week when it asked Americans whether they support gay marriage or not and got a 60/37 split in reply. Either the public doesn’t care how SSM becomes legal nationwide so long as it does or civic knowledge is sufficiently poor that they don’t grasp how a Court ruling would differ from state legislatures voting to legalize the practice. Or a third option, I guess — maybe they think that gay marriage is here to stay and will never be reversed, in which case it doesn’t matter whether SCOTUS legalizes it or a legislature does. It’s permanent. Like I say, it’s hard to know if this procedural indifference is specific to gay marriage or part of a broader trend among the public in which, as our legal and administrative bureaucracies become increasingly byzantine, the population cares increasingly little how things get done so long as they get done. That would explain why Obama feels so bold in his second term in using executive action to push key agenda items — although, in that case, explain to me why a majority supports the goals of his executive amnesty while opposing the amnesty itself. Presumably that shouldn’t happen in a “who cares?” procedural regime.
Now that I think of it, maybe it’s the polls themselves that are driving this procedural indifference on gay marriage. Everyone knows by now that a majority of the country is pro-SSM; that being so, a Supreme Court decision legalizing the practice coast to coast has some democratic legitimacy, sort of — so long as you don’t care about making actual legislatures do their jobs or anti-SSM majorities in red states being forced to accept a rule they oppose. That is to say, maybe today’s numbers are less about indifference to procedural niceties than about indifference to federalism. Ah well. I’ll leave you with this unrelated but worrisome data point from the same Q-point, courtesy of FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten. Note the trendline in the second question. Dude?
Another push poll paid for by gay billionaires.
My guess: 90% will oppose it, but half of those will just keep their mouth shut and another third will grumble but do nothing. That will still leave lots of people who will forcefully resist. This is how the next civil war could start.
The State of GA which is RINO republican in every elected position has announced that they will immediately comply with a gay marriage ruling here in GA. So the heart of the bible belt is supposed to just buckle under. I am not sure how that’s going to go down. Hopefully some folks will not get re elected like our AG and SOS.
You said it. they don't even hide that fact anymore.
What this shows is Americans seem willing to accept their chains.
Quinnipiac is probably clueless that states have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect gay marriage.
No, it shows that Quinnipiac University is good at “push polls”.
That would violate the First Amendment if they did that.
Keep fighting if you must, just know you'll not prevail absent regime change. And I'm not talking about the next election and next POTUS.
While I am opposed to homo marriage, it's not one of my top 5 issues.
And I suspect that most in the "opposed" camp don't hold it as one of their top 5 either.
Interesting concept, that -
The Supreme Court GRANTING rights.
Not without taking them away. Especially the “free exercise” right.
And of course Allahpundit is out there blowing his Libertarian trumpet. He's arguing that we are experiencing a "preference cascade" while ignoring his and others roles in creating one.
Now you have to decide if you’re fighting against God, if you take that tack. If we ignore Churchill’s admonition to “never, never, never give up”, then to hope for chains to set lightly upon our frames is in vain.
I guess they’ve gone full GodGov on us.
We’re “endowed by our Creator” with our rights.
Government is just supposed to be there to protect them.
I guess they could try to argue that that’s what they’re doing - protecting a God-given right to sodomy...
but that might be a tough argument to make (though some have tried).
You are correct! America will be enslaved. There are no real patriots alive today - none willing to risk their jobs, their homes (that they pay a mortgage on, but judging from the annual taxes and need to ask permission to make additions to the home, will NEVER actually, truly be their home), their big screen TV's and new/semi-new cars. Why risk all that? What, are you crazy or something? We've worked hard to amass all the "stuff" we have today, and you expect us to risk it all because someone is pi$$ing on the Constitution? Lol. You must be smoking some good stuff, FRiend.
/sarc
Keep fighting if you must, just know you'll not prevail absent regime change. And I'm not talking about the next election and next POTUS.
While I am opposed to homo marriage, it's not one of my top 5 issues.
And I suspect that most in the "opposed" camp don't hold it as one of their top 5 either.
The "tool" they used to win this battle against us will be re-purposed to win the battle against some issue you *DO* care about. That tool is a monolithic Liberal monopoly on all information streams, and most specifically entertainment.
The Conservative voices have been frozen out, and no opinions are permitted to get on the air without the approval of a Liberal Zampolit filter somewhere.
"First they came for the people opposed to normalizing Homosexuality, and I did not speak out— Because I was not primarily concerned with that issue."
This is just the beginning battle. They will turn their artillery on something else shortly.
That’s why the Founders wrote ‘penumbras’ into the Constitution. < /s>
We also need to grant them a right to children, because you know, they can’t have their own for some strange reason....
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