Gay marriage pays off

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25 mei 2012 | Obama’s support for gay marriage is no slip of the tongue. On the contrary, PEW-research shows that the supporters of gay marriage in 2011 for the first time outnumbered the opponents.

Interestingly, the change of opinion is seen within all agegroups: those in the age group of 18-29 years saw the percentage infavour increase from 45% in 2003 to 62% in 2011 while thepercentages in the age group 50-64 rose from 27% to 41%.

The recent PEW-data give a highly detailedinsight in the US-opinions on same sex couples. We learn forinstance that Catholics are on average much more tolerant of gaymarriages than Protestants, but the most important divide is thepolitical divide with 26% of Republicans favouring gay marriageopposed to 57% of Democrats.

For Obama’s campaign coffers it is noteworthy that generallythose Americans with higher incomes are more supportive of gaymarriage: in the income group of $100.000+, 58% are infavour against 35% opposing. Under $50.000 the distribution isroughly 50/50.