Quote:
Originally Posted by ChinoCoug
First of all Tex, I agree with you on this issue. But you are burying your head in the sand. The margins get narrower and narrower with every election. Demographic trends are the easiest ones to predict and are unsettling.
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Is this really true? What empirical data to we have to back it up? The most oft cited stat (at least to me) is the change in margin in the two CA initiatives: Prop 22 in 2000 which passed with 61%, and Prop 8 in 2008 which passed with 52%. Usually the stat-citers stop there, without any further analysis.
In that case, I could cite AZ, the only place where an anti-gay marriage initiative actually
failed in 2006. Two years later, it passed. Is this evidence support for gay marriage is crumbling?
The truth is the dynamics in all four of those races were different, especially in California. It's very hard to compare apples to apples on this issue. It's even worse when we start hearing predictions made based on the opinions of a bunch of 18-year-olds.
What I much prefer is to look at the trend line across the nation of what states are actually voting for, because I think that's a far better measure over time than comparing votes in a single state. The only state I can think of to popularly vote for gay marriage was Iowa, and oh how the pro-gay movement crowed over that one. "We won in the heartland! It's all downhill from here!" Then came Maine, and New Jersey, and now Hawaii. Can you think of a more left-wing combination of three states?
Levin may ultimately be right. Maybe every pro-gay 18-year-old will hold that exact same view 20 years from now. But maybe not. Back in the 70's people predicted popular opinion on abortion would eventually go deeply anti, because all the pro-abortionists were aborting their future voters! Nearly 40 years later, that prediction has still not panned out.
What I do know, is making such predictions is pretty pointless in a debate. We have no idea what the future holds. Let's talk about the here and now.