Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyJuly 22nd, 2011
Happiness is when reality exceeds your expectations. Apparently the National Organization “for” Marriage has officially lowered its expectations.
Over on their blog, NOM is happily touting a new poll in a post called, New Quinnipiac Poll: Majority Does NOT Support SSM:
The latest Quinnipiac poll:
Would you support or oppose a law in your state that would allow same-sex couples to get married?
Oppose: 48%
Support: 46%
Don’t Know/NA: 6%Among Republicans:
Oppose: 72%
Support: 24%
Don’t Know/NA: 4%
Not so long ago, they’d have despaired at a slim margin like that. But with poll over poll over poll showing majority support for marriage equality, these numbers are the happiest news they can find.
That’s almost sad.
Heh, heh, heh.
You have to wonder, though: How happy should they be? I hate spoiling their fun…but if you insist:
This is not the headline they want.
They wrote the headline, Majority Does Not Support SSM, but they’d much rather have written, Majority Opposes SSM. That’s one of their favorite talking points. Guess, they’ll have to retire it — even the polls they promote don’t let them say it.
So sorry, NOM.
The trend is against them.
They left a bunch of stuff out of their report. For instance, Quinnipiac’s comparison of these results to the ones they got two years ago:
|
Does that look like cause for a big NOM victory party?
So sorry.
They can’t even claim with confidence that they’re ahead.
Quinnipiac’s margin of error is ± 2%. That means the true results are somewhere in the range of 50-46 for NOM or 48-46 against NOM. Let me adjust the graphic to account for this margin of error. The wider lines indicate the 4% range for each result.
|
See how the lines now overlap? Didn’t used to happen.
So sorry.
They’re losing support in their base.
NOM gave us the Republican numbers for 2011, but not for 2009. Let me rectify that.
| Republicans/SSM | April 2009 | July 2011 |
| Oppose | 80% | 72% |
| Support | 17% | 24% |
| Don’t Know/NA | 2% | 4% |
NOM, you can’t even hold onto your own base.
So sorry.
A solid majority thinks the federal government should recognize same-sex marriage.
| Federal SSM Recognition? | April 2009 | July 2011 |
| Oppose | 39% | 34% |
| Support | 54% | 59% |
| Don’t Know/NA | 6% | 7% |
Oops — NOM, looks like you lost that one a couple years back. And you’re losing even worse now.
So sorry.
Did I say happiness is when reality exceeds your expectations? Then I’m happy, because I never expected NOM to view these numbers as good news. NOM has lowered its expectation and revealed it to the world. Maggie Gallagher recently said people should fight same-sex marriage because “Winning is fun.” I’m wondering Maggie, was New York fun? Were these numbers fun? Because writing this sure was fun for me.
Oh, I shouldn’t gloat.
So sorry.
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John Blatzheim
July 22nd, 2011
They have got to be getting nervous over there at NOM. Now if we can just defeat the MN marriage amendment they won’t even be able to say that every state to vote on our civil rights has decided we don’t deserve them…
Bryan
July 22nd, 2011
What surprised me the most was that the poll also showed that a plurality of respondents thought that states where same-sex marriage is not legal should still have to recognize those where it is legal by 49-44. So both sections 2 and 3 of DOMA are shown to lack popular support.
Timothy Kincaid
July 22nd, 2011
Gosh, the way that things are going, it’s almost enough to make a traditional marriage supporter hide their husband and go by a different name.
TampaZeke
July 22nd, 2011
Come on Timothy, Maggie has a very traditional Christindu marriage.
Mark F.
July 22nd, 2011
One quibble: the margin of error means that there is a 95% probability that the true result is within the given margin. So the true result will be outside the margin 1 in 20 times.
Theo
July 22nd, 2011
I think that this national Quinnipiac poll has it right. The gap is closing dramatically, but the slew of polls from earlier this year that showed support for SSM above 50% were probably unduly optimistic. When you look at the state-by-state polling, the support in blue and purple states is simply not high enough to yield a national average above 50%.
One other very good bit of news. The 48-46 result depends upon a radical divergence b/t Republicans on the one hand, and Dems and Independents on the other. That kind of imbalance is unlikely to sustain itself. The outlier attempts to win over Independents, but if that fails, the outlier’s position eventually shifts to some degree.
If GOP opposition drops into the 60s, it will be a near-fatal development for NOM. That is why they are so furious with the GOP hedge funders and the 4 NY Senators who helped bring SSM to NY.
Stefan
July 23rd, 2011
“When you look at the state-by-state polling, the support in blue and purple states is simply not high enough to yield a national average above 50%.”
Didn’t New York show support in the upper 50% range?
“Now if we can just defeat the MN marriage amendment they won’t even be able to say that every state to vote on our civil rights has decided we don’t deserve them…”
Maine is statistically an all but certain victory for our side in 2012. The fact that it’ll be an on year Presidential election as opposed to an off year election (2009), plus the surging support for same sex marriage is enough to tip the scales.
Roa
July 23rd, 2011
In 2007, Maggie, an African Elephant was rescued from the Alaska Zoo and relocated to Galt California to reside at a rescue agency called PAWS. Maybe Ms Gallagher could find an equally happy home there as well. Sorry if this seems catty but I just can’t ignore the similarities.
Priya Lynn
July 23rd, 2011
Theo said “I think that this national Quinnipiac poll has it right. The gap is closing dramatically, but the slew of polls from earlier this year that showed support for SSM above 50% were probably unduly optimistic.”.
When several polls show one result and a single one differs it is usually the single one that is wrong.
Richard Rush
July 23rd, 2011
Roa, I think it’s a bit unseemly to compare Maggie Gallagher to Maggie the elephant – but only because elephants are among the most magnificently wonderful animals on earth who also manage to be cute, adorable, and cuddly.
I would compare Maggie Gallagher to a bloated tick – because she derives her sustenance from sucking the lifeblood out of millions of people.
Oh, look here, it’s a bloated female tick:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dharmasphere/125823585/
And who’s that male companion with her? Could it be Brian Brown?
Regan DuCasse
July 23rd, 2011
Hi Richard,
Having worked up close and personal with elephants and one in particular, I can totally concur with your assessment of elephants.
I disagree with you on MG though.
She’s MUCH worse than that!
Mark F.
July 23rd, 2011
Yes, the comparison of Maggie with elephants was insulting to the whole animal kingdom!
Timothy Kincaid
July 23rd, 2011
Okay guys… let’s not feed into the whole “but the gays are MEEEEAN to me thing that she’s already spewing.”
There’s more than enough entirely due criticism of Maggie without having to go into things that aren’t really relevant. Im sure many, ummm, people to whom we might compare to elephants are strong supporters.
Timothy Kincaid
July 23rd, 2011
I’m with Priya on this one. As difficult as it is for me to accept that opinion has shifted so quickly, generally it is the outlier poll that is suspect. Not always, but often enough that we can’t just toss out the ones that agree.
Richard Rush
July 24th, 2011
Not to keep going off on a tangent, but . . .
We’ve all heard how the threat of terrible retribution from mean vicious homos caused potential anti-gay court witnesses to hide and cower in fear, thus preventing their side of the issue from being told.
And yet Maggie’s existence is the prime chuck of evidence that those fears are nonsense. She’s been the public face of the anti-gay marriage crusade for years, so if there’s anyone who would be the target of terrible retribution, it would certainly be her. But, AFAIK, she hasn’t had as much as a classic pie in her face. And also, AFAIK, she hasn’t even been glittered yet! All she can cite is being called mean names just because she crusades to have the government and voters impose limits on the life-opportunities of gay people.
Stefan
July 24th, 2011
Regardless, all the polls have show accelerated growth in support for same sex marriage in the past year, no matter how high they show support being.
cd
July 24th, 2011
First of all, The Big One is the repeal of Prop 8 a year (plus) from now. After that it’s just a sulking retreat by the anti-gays.
Maggie has been moving on to ruining marriage for hetero folks.
http://cjonline.com/news/2011-07-02/brownback-program-promotes-marriage?page=4#.ThPHgIIw3l5
“Syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher, who was included in one published list of participants but didn’t attend, said during a speech about the pro-marriage movement that Catholics and Christians had to be the “visible light” for people failing to grasp intricacies of the institution of marriage.”
Who knew that marriage is an intricate, complicated institution?
T.J.
July 24th, 2011
These people are so often in denial, but I can’t help but get the sneaking suspicion that they know the game’s up on this one. Just a few more years and they will be the unquestioned minority. That’s what happens when you go around declaring the apocalypse is going to occur if your opposition gets its way. The fear tactic only works for so long until the people who were afraid start to realize the sky isn’t falling and that the people who were scaring them don’t have anything substantive to say. They then listen to other side and are converted by rational arguments. Sucks to be NOM!
MEP
July 25th, 2011
I wish people would stick to the issues. Name calling does no one any good. Just remember this quote:
“Don’t wrestle with the pigs. The pigs love it and you get dirty.”
Don’t use hate to fight hate. It does not work.
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