Ahnold Schwarzen-Gay-Hater?
By Ryan Sager Published 09/09/2005
Opponents of same-sex marriage may claim it as a victory: Ahnold terminates gay marriage in California. Deep down, however, these folks know that this time it's not the Governator saying "I'll be back." It's the people who believe that gay couples should be afforded the same legal rights as straight couples.
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Here's the catch, though. Californians may have rejected gay marriage in 2000, but the Legislature's change of attitude is no grand conspiracy as some conservatives in the state would charge. "The only word I can see here is prostitution," the president of the Campaign for Children and Families, Randy Thomasson, told The Los Angeles Times. "Instead of obeying the voters and the Constitution, the Democratic politicians have prostituted themselves to the homosexual marriage agenda."
But is responding to a shift in public attitudes really what Thomasson means by prostitution? An August poll by the Public Policy Institute of California showed that likely voters are split 46 percent to 46 percent when asked, "Do you favor or oppose allowing gay and lesbian couples to be legally married?"
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Yet it's crystal clear where public opinion is headed, both in California and nationwide. The younger the demographic polled, the more support is found for gay marriage and civil unions. Really, what gay marriage opponents are looking to do is write anti-gay provisions into as many state constitutions as possible -- and maybe even into the federal Constitution -- before the people invested in the so-called "defense of marriage" all die off.
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Ryan Sager is a member of the editorial board of The New York Post. He also edits the blog Miscellaneous Objections and can be reached at editor@rhsager.com.
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