Opn: Conservative vs. Liberal: Gay marriage - Los Angel Tim

Contents:

• OPN: CONSERVATIVE VS. LIBERAL: GAY MARRIAGE
• GAY MARRIAGE WON, BUT OTHER LIBERAL CS WILL PROBABLY STGGLE TO COPY ITS SUCCS
• SECTN 2: LONG-TERM VIEWS OF HOMOSEXUALY, GAY MARRIAGE AND ADOPTN

OPN: CONSERVATIVE VS. LIBERAL: GAY MARRIAGE

In the space of two days this week voters North Carola approved a nstutnal amendment effectively banng same-sex marriage and US Print Barack Obama ma clear his view that gay and lbian upl should have the chance to wed. We Southerners have held the le for tradn and moral tth about marriage every time the issue has been put on the ballot how cisive the North Carola vote was, and given that gay marriage proponents have lost every state, even culturally liberal California, is temptg to thk we n stand athwart history yellg, "Stop! In my newsroom experience, is taken as given that any opposn to gay marriage n only e om rank would no more take a fenr of tradnal marriage serly than you would take a segregatnist serly - or so the thkg go.

Tryg to expla philosophilly why homosexualy is not the same thg as race draws blank is simply not somethg to be reasoned about, pecially not wh my generatn of journalists: too young to have seen the black civil rights movement, and who are not about to miss out on their own versn.

GAY MARRIAGE WON, BUT OTHER LIBERAL CS WILL PROBABLY STGGLE TO COPY ITS SUCCS

Though I firmly believe there is only a superficial nnectn between gay marriage and ter-racial marriage, the legacy of the civil rights movement the South is precisely why I thk marriage tradnalists are gog to lose the long n. This tells somethg about the future of gay marriage, given the domance of the "civil rights" narrative the public is monly known,.

SECTN 2: LONG-TERM VIEWS OF HOMOSEXUALY, GAY MARRIAGE AND ADOPTN

Gay marriage opponents like to tell themselv that people get more nservative as they age - te, general, but unlikely this long as the tradnalist posn on same-sex marriage, almost universally held only 25 years ago, is treated as irratnal hatred and nothg but by the media, bs, and social el, there will be powerful social and psychologil prsure to shun . Prejudice - eher the bad sense of mdls bigotry, or the good, Burkean sense - is the only thg keepg gay marriage at will not last, pecially as the social, legal, and mercial price for holdg fast to tradn creas, as certaly will, now that same-sex marriage mands the high ground the US social and cultural hierarchy. Gay marriage plet the stutnalisatn of the sexual revolutn, agast which the forc of social nservatism and relig tradn have been pleasg as ballot box victori are, I see no reason for the long feat to reverse, at least not my lifetime.

Among olr horts, Boomers (ag 51 to 69) are currently divid (45% favor, 48% oppose), while Silents (ag 70-87) are the only generatn which signifintly more oppose (53%) than favor (39%) gay marriage.

However, while Boomer Democrats currently favor gay marriage by 60% to 34%, Boomer Republins oppose by a parable marg (62% to 31%). Currently, 45% of Gen X Republins and Republin leaners favor allowg gays and lbians to marry legally, roughly double the percentage as 2005 (23%). This gap has narrowed somewhat om a ago, when 69% of liberal Democrats backed gay marriage, pared wh only about a third (32%) of the party’s nservativ and morat.