Gay Marriage Foes Urge GOP to Cling to Sinking Ship

A new poll shows that Texas is
the latest state flipping for gay marriage. A poll put together by
Texas Tech University showed
48 percent of Texans supporting same-sex marriage recognition
and 47 percent opposed. It’s nearly a 10 percent increase in
support in Texas since the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down
part of the Defense of Marriage Act last year. A federal judge also

struck down Texas’ ban on same-sex marriage recognition in
February, though the ruling is stayed for appeals.

But polls be damned, the same gay marriage opponents who have
been fighting against gay marriage from the start are still trying
to insist that Republicans need to keep embracing this culture war
battle in order to please their base. They put together a poll of
Republicans and Republican-leaning independents to bolster their
claims.
Politico notes:

The survey by the GOP polling firm Wilson Research Strategies
was of Republican and Republican-leaning independents and was taken
over a month ago, sampling 801 people from March 18 through March
20, with a 3.5 percent margin of error.

The survey showed 82 percent agreeing with a statement that
marriage should be between “one man and one woman.” It also found
75 percent disagreed that “politicians should support the
redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples.”

First of all, the wording of the questions matter. Reason-Rupe
poll director Emily Ekins has previously noted that polls that ask
whether people want to
“redefine” marriage get greater disapproval numbers than polls
that ask whether people want to “legalize” gay marriage. Both the
questions address only the idea of “defining” or “redefining”
marriage and nothing to do with policies or principles. It doesn’t
ask whether the government should recognize same-sex marriages or
whether government benefits or privileges should be extended to
same-sex couples. The question was designed to get more negative
responses.

And then there’s this
graph reminder from Gallup:

It’s a reminder that the Republican Party has been bleeding
members since 2005. Only 25 percent of Americans identify as
Republicans, while 42 percent identify as independents and 31
percent identify as Democrats.
This marriage poll included independents who said they leaned
toward the Republican party, but doesn’t indicate how many
independents they surveyed leaned toward the GOP. Another chart
from Gallup shows Democrats still outnumbering Republicans
significantly when independent “leaners” were included.

Even as the popularity of President Barack Obama and his
policies plunge, and the likelihood of the Republican Party taking
control of the Senate following midterms increases, the GOP is
still struggling with this issue. The Nevada Republican Party

removed opposition to gay marriage (and abortion) from its
party platform earlier in the month. And yesterday the Consumer
Electronics Association, a trade association, announced it was
going to provide financial support to the
Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay conservatives, apparently
the first tech group to do so. As the
Mozilla controversy has shown, there is political diversity
within the tech community, but it is nevertheless largely
supportive of same-sex marriage. Would any GOP operative look at
the shifts in this country on gay marriage (especially among the
young) and actually recommend listening to these guys?