A report on trends in public opinion about same-sex marriage draws on polling data from the U of CT, The Polling Report, & web sites of poll sponsors. Same-sex marriage is discussed within the context of the broader political struggle over gay rights. Poll data indicate that a majority of Americans view same-sex marriage as either undermining the traditional family or conflicting with their religious values. Although there has been a slight increase in support for same-sex marriage since the earliest polls in 1988, it is minimal & opposition has been consistent. However, the public is more supportive of civil unions & that support has been increasing; the proportion of Americans who support some legal recognition of same-sex couples now exceeds those who favor no recognition. It is noted that the majority has consistently supported Social Security benefits, inheritance rights, & health insurance benefits for gay spouses. The public is basically split on the proposal for a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man & a woman. Appendixes, References. J. Lindroth
Research on attitudes toward gay people and same‐sex marriage finds that individuals who know a gay person in their immediate personal network are not only more likely to view gay people positively but also support same‐sex marriage. Here we examine whether this result extends to an individual's stance toward specific ballot measures regarding same‐sex marriage across different social and political climates ranging from the conservative South to the liberal Pacific Northwest. Using survey data collected in three states that considered banning or approving same‐sex marriage during the 2012 election cycle, we analyze the hypothesis that a personal relationship with a gay person affects an individual's vote choice on a ballot measure with actual policy consequences. In the end, we find mixed results across the three states. Our results suggest the importance of state‐level variation in the social climate that may temper the effect of contact.Related Articles
Skipworth, Sue Ann, Andrew Garner, and Bryan J. Dettrey. 2010. "." Politics & Policy 38 (): 887‐906. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2010.00262.x/abstract Related Media
Cotner, Ben, and Ryan White. HBO Documentary. http://thecaseagainst8.com/
2015. "Same‐Sex Marriage Laws." http://www.ncsl.org/research/human‐services/same‐sex‐marriage‐laws.aspx
In this Essay I would like to share some reflections on the politics of same-sex marriage politics. In a very short period of time, this issue has moved to the center of the gay and lesbian rights movement as well as larger mainstream political and legal debates. Some have even argued that this issue affected, if not determined, the outcome of the 2004 presidential election. This, I believe, is rather an overstatement, but I must concede that the issue has gained traction in ways that most of us would not have predicted five years ago. The states of Vermont and Connecticut have enacted Civil Union laws for same-sex couples, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts now allows both same and different sex couples to marry, and, in the last year, trial courts have found unconstitutional the exclusion of same-sex couples from the institution of marriage in New York and California. Spain has now joined some of its fellow EU members in the Rhine Delta by allowing same-sex couples to marry, and the Constitutional Court of South Africa found that the South African Constitution requires that same-sex couples be permitted to marry on terms equal to those made available to different sex couples. At the same time, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the same-sex marriage law in California, courts in Arizona and Indiana rejected constitutional challenges to their marriage laws, an intermediate appellate court in New York reversed a trial court finding that same-sex couples should be permitted to marry, and referenda barring same-sex marriage swept the country in 2004 and 2005 and will, no doubt, continue to do so in 2006. Forty-two states have enacted "little DOMAs," limiting the institution of marriage to one man and one woman. This issue, like so many others in American politics at the present moment, is highly polarized – rarely garnering moderate positions. I would like to reflect on this dynamic political, moral, and legal moment – which, I fear, may have shifted again by the time you finish reading this Essay – by offering some thoughts about how and why this particular issue has emerged as the highest of priorities in the gay community, and what might be the costs of such a strategic choice. Just two years ago, in sweeping language, the U.S. Supreme Court found laws that criminalized same-sex sex unconstitutional in Lawrence v. Texas. This decision has been widely referred to in the lesbian and gay legal community as "our Brown," referring to the landmark 1954 desegregation decision Brown v. Board of Education. By this, of course, it is meant that Lawrence would usher in a civil rights revolution for gay men and lesbians in a fashion equivalent to the civil rights movement inaugurated by Brown.
The summer of 2011 marked an important turning-point in the geography and politics of sex: public sex, previously a domain dominated by the specter of a hypersexualized gay man, became the province of the irresponsible, foolish, and self-destructive heterosexual man, such as Anthony Weiner. Meanwhile, homosexuals were busy domesticating their sexuality in the private domain of the family. Just as hetero-sex shamefully seeped out into the open, homo-sex disappeared from view into the dignified pickets of private kinship. In this essay I examine the panic that unfolded in connection with Representative Weiner's tweets as a kind of afterlife of homophobia; an afterlife that was not unrelated to the success of same-sex couples' demand for marriage equality rights.
The present research examines the implications of psychological essentialism for attitudes toward same‐sex marriage (SSM), a hotly contested policy issue. Based on the literature on psychological essentialism, we tested the novel proposition that negative SSM attitudes are the result of essentialist thinking about the institution of marriage itself, the idea that marriage is universal, unique as a human union, invariant, and not the result of human agency. Two studies (n = 351 and n = 117) confirm these predictions, but also demonstrate the essentialist conceptions of marriage are more potent predictors of SSM attitudes than essentialist conceptions of homosexuality. Additional analyses indicated that essentialist conceptions of homosexuality and marriage did mediate the effects of religiosity and political orientation on SSM attitudes. The discussion focuses on the implications for the ongoing policy debate.
Australia has achieved a high degree of equality between the treatment of same-sex and heterosexual relationships with marriage remaining the one significant area of difference. Executive summary Same-sex marriage has been on the political agenda in Australia for several years, as part of the broader debate about the legal recognition of same-sex relationships. While there has been a shift in community and political opinion, the issue of same-sex marriage remains complex and controversial. It has raised human rights and constitutional law issues, as well as a raft of social, religious, moral and political questions. The purpose of this Research Paper is to update a 2012 Parliamentary Library Background Note and to draw more widely on the extensive resources available on this subject. The paper covers a range of topics including: the views of the political parties constitutional issues and the 2013 High Court Same-sex marriage case. In that case the Court found the ACT same-sex marriage law was in conflict with the Commonwealth Marriage Act 1961 and therefore inoperative and 'of no effect'. Equally significantly, the Court resolved any doubts as to the scope of the 'marriage power' finding that the federal Parliament has the power to legislate about same-sex marriage a comparative analysis of the four private member Bills before the Parliament, introduced by Senator Hanson Young, Senator Leyonhjelm, Mr Shorten MP and a cross party Bill sponsored by Mr Entsch MP. All Bills are similar in that they insert a new identical definition of marriage into the Marriage Act encompassing unions of any two people regardless of sex, and repeal the existing ban on the recognition of same-sex marriages solemnised overseas. The Bills differ in style and substance in relation to the provisions dealing with exemptions for marriage celebrants who may have religious or conscience objections to solemnising gay marriages a short section comparing the differences between a plebiscite and a referendum, included in response to the recent ...
Abstract In 2019 Taiwan became the first country in Asia to legalise same-sex marriage pursuant to the Constitutional Court's decision two years earlier. This article adds to previous research on same-sex marriage in Taiwan in two respects. Firstly, this study contends that most of the major arguments made in the Court's decision in 2017 that legalised same-sex marriage were already present in several legislative bills that preceded the Court's ruling. Secondly, the separate same-sex marriage law that was finally passed in 2019 reflected the government's endeavour to reach a compromise in meeting some of the demands of both advocates and opponents of marriage equality in Taiwanese society. The story of the marriage equality debate is analysed through textual comparisons of relevant government documents, ngo websites of marriage equality advocates and opponents, newspaper articles, and academic journal articles.
This book exemplifies the high quality of thoughtful discussion and debate that is possible on the issue of same-sex marriage. Authors are paired to address and respond to a particular topic, one in favor of state recognition of same-sex relationships, and one in favor of limiting state recognition to those relationships that have been traditionally recognized as marriages.||Proposals to legalize same-sex marriage evoke strong response from those on both sides of the debate. Much has been written about the legal policy issues over the legal recognition of same-sex unions in the United States
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