US support for gay marriage falls, but not by much

June 24, 4:11 AMInternational LGBT Issues ExaminerKelvin Lynch

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                                                    Chart:  CBS News

According to a new CBS News/New York Times poll, 33% of American favor same-sex marriage, a decline of 12% since April.  Thirty percent  favor civil unions, and 32% support no legal recognition of same-sex unions. 

US News & World Report said the results could vindicate the Obama aministration's holding off on a repeal of  DADT or DOMA over fears of public backlash:

"The dip in support most likely represents a reaction to the flurry of news stories about the handful of states—Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont—that have legalized gay marriage in the past three months."

However, this isn't exactly bad news.  It means a total of 63% of Americans still support some form of legal recognition for same-sex couples - either marriage or civil unions.  Even if the small dip in support correlates with gay marriage victories in the states, it doesn't imply causation. 

There are any number of factors that could have come into play, not the least of which is the increased visibility and infiltrative efforts of anti-gay marriage forces like the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and the re-emergence of the Yes on Prop 8 crowd.

And the good news is, as damaging as they attempt to be, their efforts have amounted to a relatively small impact on the opinion of the majority of Americans. 

Even more good news - according to the AP, the US Census Bureau has announced that married same-sex couples will be counted in the 2010 Census, a reversal of an earlier decision by the Bush administration.  Bureau spokesman Steve Jost said, "They will be counted, and they ought to report the way they see themselves.  In the normal process of reports coming out after the census of 2010, I think the country will have a good data set on which to discuss this phenomenon that is evolving in this country."

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