CA voted against SSM in a general election.

Western Europe generally supports civil unions, not same sex marriage, and they're far more culturally leftwards overall than the US, far more even than California which as a whole would be considered conservative by European standards.

The whole push for SSM in the US is a wedge issue, distraction, and waste of time. It's not accomplishing anything beyond spinning wheels and electing Republicans.

If atheistic and non-nonpracticing European countries, that have legalized drugs, and far more social welfare programs than the US, and a far more homogeneous culture; still can't pass SSM, the idea we will in America is just totally delusional.

Isn't the backlash ongoing? Rose tinted glasses?

Only 28 percent favored gay marriage in 1977, when the Field Poll first asked that question, said Mark DiCamillo, the poll's director. "This is a milestone in California," he said. "You can't downplay the importance of a change in an issue we've been tracking for 30 years."

You were saying?

Well, you're making a lot of statistical fallacies there.

You can't presume a trend is permanent. Trends often hit ceilings or even reverse. Many things appear to be gaining popularity when largely hypothetical and unknown, and then fail once the public becomes more familiar and initial impressions are examined.

You're also conflating gay marriage with civil unions, which are very distinct. I'm for civil unions, and most of Western Europe is. Not gay marriage. It's an important distinction to most people largely regarding child rearing.

Don't take this fellow too literally. He doesn't know how to read trends or generational differences and has very Eighties beliefs that all the benefit of doubt invariable still goes immediately to the conservative side. Also some running personal problem with gay people.

That 1% per year liberal shift is also seen in polling about the death penalty, btw. And for comparison, when Loving v Virginia was decided in 1967, 10% supported a right to interracial marriage. That number was 50% in 1992- 25 years later.

I remember quite clearly that in 1983 and 1984, over the course of a single year, people where I lived just stopped their public rhetoric against interracial relationships and went on to other things. They had became too much of a daily fact of life.

The Massachusetts SSM numbers haven't been polled in a while, but it's over 55-60% in favor of SSM remaining legalized depending on how you ask the question last I saw. Opposition is somewhere in the low thirties or high twenties and fading, there being some fuzzy zone with indifference.

Basically, the old folks are taking old scores and their views with them to the graveyards. People under about 35 or 40 don't really know the terribly closeted and vicious condition prior to about 1980 in Blue States and at least a decade longer (if not two) in Red States in which there was a lot of abuse and retaliatory malice between gays and straights.

A lot of things trend one way for young people, and then the other way once they're past mid 20's. As I've mentioned, when younger and naive I was all for LG marriage and thought one shouldn't be prejudiced against anyone for any reason as all prejudice had to be unfair.

I also thought there'd be no problem with gay parenting, or single parenting, or whatever. I was totally unprejudiced against anything.

As I'm in my 30's now, I realize there are actually serious problems with gay and lesbian parenting, and no it's not an unfair prejudice to want to discourage it.

Gay marriage's essential problem is it sounds great to young hipsters trying to show how idealistic, open minded, and PC they are. The slogans Graff is fond of works well on that. But, by the time those same people are in thier later 20's and 30's they'll be thinking more seriously about issues pertaining to marriage and parenting.

***

A basic problem for gay marriage is its tied to child rearing, and L+G parenting is not equivilent.

Obviously, sexual reproduction is by definition heterosexual. A homosexual relationship is by definition not fertile.

Both mothers and fathers matter. Cognitive studies show there are real gender differences at the biological level and obviously there are great life experiences differences. Having both has always been preferred and should be preferred.

There are biological realities like gay men's inability to breast feed or relate to menstruating. Or lesbian mother's inability to relate to male puberty or male experiences.

I hate to have to point this out, but statistically men have a much higher rate of pedophilia and sexual predation than women, and gay men an even higher rate, for several reasons. One is that gay and lesbian pedophilia is much harder to prevent due to the impossibility of sexual segregation by gender. The problems of the Catholic church being an example and rape in prisons another.

Homosexual parenting is unlike heterosexual in that the best case scenario still requires one parent to adopt the biological child of the other. Ordinarily that option is only chosen due to infertility or other misfortune. Only homosexual couples couples have that as a first choice which presents real social and biological problems.

Studies on adopted parents show they have higher incidence of divorce and family abandonment, and even sexual abuse, as makes sense it would be statistically higher considering there is no blood relationship to the child.

All that combined, increased rate of pedophilia, increased rate of divorce and abandonment, lack of gender role models, etc. and gay and lesbian parenting doesn't sound so great in reality.

Parenting is fundamentally coupled to marriage.

I'm an adoptive parent who was widowed when the child was in kindergarten; thereafter I was a working single parent. This puts me in not one but two groups with statistically worse than average odds of successful parenting;

Well, best wishes to you, I know it's hard for single parents especially considering all the cutbacks and absurd healthcare costs.

but, no, that's a false analogy.

First of all, adopting is a solution to a child lacking a parent. It's clearly a positive. Secondly, becoming a widow is a misfortune, it's not planned.

That's very different than if you had formally planned a single parent home, and then taken a sperm donor to conceive a child knowingly denying a mother or father, and deliberately becoming a struggling "working single parent." That would be very irresponsible and selfish.

Also, experiencing misfortune often spurs people to cope; which is very different than willingly choosing an unfortunate situation out of foolishness or selfishness for ideological reasons.

I don't consider it an appropriate ... to prevent ... on the grounds that statistically they are more [problematic] ... [except] pedophiles or high-level sex offenders who are overwhelmingly likely.

OK, there you concede it's an equation of risk. In some areas you see the risk as insufficient, and sufficient in others. I think that should be decided democratically because it's viable concern and not a universal right.

Secondly, this issues of "prevention" is a red herring. There's no forced sterilization programs I'm aware of. Children aren't being denied access to public schools. It's just that people are reluctant, imo for good reason, to entirely endorse and award a package of rights, taxes, social endorsement, bureaucratic and legal status, and so on, to actively endorse gay couples becoming child bearing families.

Lastly, as another example of identity politics vs statistical risk, take the issue of HIV and gay blood donors.

For many years, sexually active gay male blood donors increased the statistical risk of HIV transmission to unacceptable levels. That was due to the lag time of HIV tests from infection to detection, and overall inaccuracy. The statistical analysis of risk was clear.

Yet, entirely for identity politics, the gay community argued it should be accepted as blood donors, most entirely in ignorance of the science and just perceiving it as unfair bigotry and an "equality" issue.

Now, better screening has been developed, and many countries are lifting or reconsidering bans.
But while they were in effect it was perfectly rational and saved many lives. Which is how public polciy should work.

Not on identity politics or bumper sticker ideas of radicalism or conservatism.

Childless marriages are not particularly deviant, nor are alternative ways of having children.

btw, that's another false argument.

As an incentive and social institution marriage is designed to help facilitate, not mandate. It doesn't mandate people have children. That would be crazy.

The ways in which society recognizes children and awards them benefits and rights are multiple, and almost entirely after the fact. Public schools, dependent tax credits, base standards for education and child care, etc. Because those are based on the child after the fact, they're universal.

However, marriage as a social institution has a unique component of proactively encouraging good home environments before having children, towards an ideal of: enduring commitment between a man and a woman which includes aspects of financial planning and responsibility, and as part of that the court pledges to help resolve disputes, divorce, custody, finance, etc.

I think that's reasonable. Regardless, it's a cultural issue decided democratically. It's not an absolute right.