Young voters are abandoning social issues and focusing on fiscal ones, the New York Times informs us in a hopeful voice. They present scant evidence for this contention, ignoring data from the General Social Survey showing that young voters—who through the 70′s, 80′s, and 90′s were the most pro-choice cohort—became the most pro-life cohort around the year 2000 (even more pro-life than senior citizens). This difference in opinion is massively amplified by an “intensity gap” between pro-life and pro-choice young people. A 2012 NARAL survey found that 51 percent of pro-life voters age 30 or younger feel abortion is a very important issue in determining their vote while only 26 percent of their pro-choice peers feel the same way. Pro-life young people not only outnumber pro-choice young people in aboslute terms, they overwhelm two-to-one in terms of commitment to the issue, a result so depressing for pro-choice activists that it prompted Nancy Keenan, NARAL’s head, to resign.
The winds are blowing in a different direction on same-sex marriage, to be sure: 37 percent of young Republicans favor gay marriage, up from 28 percent eight years ago (yet still far below the 63 percent support among young people in general). The headline numbers do not tell the full story. Same-sex marriage famously receives less support—about seven points less—at the ballot box than on opinion polls because voters who oppose same-sex marriage are reluctant to admit their opposition to an interviewer. But is support for same-sex marriage uniformly overstated? If respondents lie because they feel social pressure to support same-sex marriage, those who feel the most social pressure (i.e., young people) are likely to be the cohort in which support is most radically overstated. Same-sex marriage proponents have learned to mistrust opinion polls, but have failed to absorb the lesson that polls of young people are likely to be the least reliable of all.
Gay marriage has its own intensity gap, a fact that underlines how polls systematically overstate same-sex marriage support. An ABC/Langer Research Associates poll found that 65 percent of conservatives reacted in a strongly unfavorable way to Obama’s same-sex marriage announcement while only 52 percent of Democrats responded in a strongly favorable way. Some of those Democrats just don’t feel strongly about the issue; others are the people who really disagree with Obama but won’t admit as much to pollsters. The 13-point difference reflects a basic imbalance in the debate: opposition to same-sex marriage is much firmer than support for it, and proponents are going to have an increasingly difficult time converting those who have held out this long. The hope that a national debate on same-sex marriage will inevitably advance its cause is also cast into doubt by the fact that during campaigns on same-sex marriage questions, we haven’t seen a net shift in opinion one way or the other. In short, we should not be surprised to see the increase in youth support stop when the issue leaves the headlines (or when young people move off campuses and into the suburbs where there is less social pressure in favor of the elite consensus).
None of this is reflected in the Times story, which takes favorable polls at face value, ignores unfavorable ones, and interviews non-representative subjects (College Republicans tend to be the résumé-building establishment types who have been losing elections and influence in the party for the last decade). Yet the story still teaches us something, namely, that even if young Republicans care less about social issues (which does not seem to be the case) the Times cares about them more than ever. The tell here, which is a sort of death knell for liberalism, is how hopefully the Times notes that fiscal issues are displacing social ones. Since when did liberals prefer a Republican party devoted to rolling back healthcare reform and slashing the welfare state to one that argues against killing unborn children and rewriting the definition of marriage? Aren’t these the issues that Kansans are supposed to ignore in favor of “real” economic ones?
One could write a book titled What’s the Matter with the Upper West Side? if this new form of liberalism wasn’t precisely the one most friendly to the class interests of the Times’ readers and editors. This combination of pro-business economics with sexual liberationism—let’s call it Bloombergism—is the new consensus around which the Democratic Party is built. It allows wealthy voters to vote for their own interests on economic matters while still congratulating themselves on their liberal social opinions. It is an ideology that strikes not one but two blows to the working man, ignoring his economic interests while shredding the social fabric on which he particularly relies.
August 9th, 2012 | 11:56 am
You make some valid points. However, also note that the polling is simply unreliable. This was evident recently in North Carolina where virtually all of the public polling showed the amendment either losing or winning by a substantially narrower margin than it did.
August 9th, 2012 | 12:01 pm
One of my favorite facts concerning young people; and one that is unavoidable, is that they inevitably grow up.
Regardless of that fact however, it is clear to me that the concentration on youth support for same-sex “marriage” is being used to reinforce the “inevitability” argument that is at the core of the media’s manipulations on this subject.
Rarely if ever do we see the opinions of the youngest, least experiences, and least educated of our population being cited as the reason a certain policy is inevitable & should be capitulated to.
When do we see the polls that show overwhelming youth support for say – drug legalization, increased environmental protections, or student loan forgiveness that then go on to suggest hat these policy changes are “inevitable” and will ultimately prevail?
Compounding that is the fact that young people simply are not given the contrary opinion anywhere in the media they consume. The enthusiasm factor is also quite low..with many respondents answering poll questions in a vain more akin to “let them do whatever they please” than “should we change the definition of marriage”.
It would be fruitful to conduct a series of polls were young people were asked more pertinent A questions like “DO you think children need both their Mothers & their Fathers” &/or “Do you believe both genders are important in child development?” &/or “Do you consider people who support the man/woman definition of marriage to be bigoted?” &/or “Is it unjustly discriminatory to reserve marriage as a union of one man & one woman?”
August 9th, 2012 | 12:31 pm
[...] especially their loss of interest in social issues. Matt Schmitz at First Things gives a different take on the future of these same social [...]
August 9th, 2012 | 2:27 pm
[...] Youth Support for Gay Marriage Weaker Than You Think – Matthew Schmitz, First Things/First Thoughts [...]
August 9th, 2012 | 2:40 pm
Rarely if ever do we see the opinions of the youngest, least experiences, and least educated of our population being cited as the reason a certain policy is inevitable & should be capitulated to.
On the other hand, remember who said, “The emperor has no clothes!”
August 9th, 2012 | 4:48 pm
“On the other hand, remember who said, “The emperor has no clothes!”
Hans Christian Andersen (sorry, could not resist!)
August 9th, 2012 | 5:34 pm
Oh please, Fitzgerald, your questions are no better than coercing children into the support of same-sex marriage (no, that does not belong in quotes). Not to mention your last question actually fits the very definition of discrimination, regardless of the connotation that goes along with the word.
This article is well and good, but the media at least presents facts (i.e., 37% support among young Republicans) – you’ve presented assumptions. I’ll give you my own assumptions (supported by fact), which would go along with what the media says.
People are coming out younger than ever (fact). More young people know gay people than ever before (fact). You are much less likely to discriminate (i.e. only support “traditional” marriage) against gay people if you personally know someone who’s gay (fact). So the assumption here is that more and more young people are exposed to more and more gay people, meaning they’re more likely to support same-sex marriage. Unless there’s a reformation of some sort, I do believe that it is, indeed, inevitable that same-sex marriage will be legalized nation-wide.
If you took a walk through a high school, as I will do once again in a month, you would experience two completely different sides on this issue. The interesting thing is that the two sides exist within individuals themselves, not ideological groups. One side is the bullying side. You would be hard pressed to find a teenager that doesn’t use ‘gay’ as insult. One the other side is the serious side. The side that recognizes that restricting the freedoms of your fellow citizens is wrong, when those citizens commit no harm. Young people supporting same-sex marriage isn’t a sign of weakening morals or something, either. They simply have the most unobstructed views on the matter.
August 9th, 2012 | 8:02 pm
One of my favorite facts concerning young people; and one that is unavoidable, is that they inevitably grow up.
Yes, there is a powerful wake-up that occurs when political partisans confront their own cognitive dissonance, and gay marriage requires an especially large dose of cognitive dissonance.
Gay marriage is a twofold proposition: on the one hand, gays want to be recognized as couples, and granted benefits appropriate to couples, and that’s compelling. I would argue that, because we have freedom of religion in America – and because there are religions (such as Unitarian Universalism) that do hold beliefs about self/identity, sexuality, choice, marriage, and family, that require the recognition of gay couples as equal to hetero couples, we therefore have to recognize gay couples as life partners.
But the problem comes into play when we equate life partners with married partners. To Unitarian Universalists, humanists, and other people embracing the doctrine of the sexual revolution, these two things should be equal. But they’re not equal – that is, there are distinguishing traits/features. There are differences – specifically, differences revolving around the reality that procreation is an important element of the institution of marriage. The atheist can insist that these differences don’t matter, but the atheist doesn’t get to have his own facts: that such differences exist is a fact, and the gay rights activist oversteps his bounds when he insists that he has a right to dictate how all of us must interpret these differences: what meanings we ought to assign, or not assign; what significance we grant; what decisions we view as valid or not valid. And so on.
What’s worse is that, in order to sustain the narrative that the differences between procreative and non-procreative couples “doesn’t matter”*, gays have to create two sets of arguments – and switch back and forth between them. Is marriage procreative? No. They are quite sure on this point. Until it is their own procreative nature that is at issue – at which point it is discriminatory to refuse to recognize them as procreative (unspoken but present: because of course marriage is procreative). If marriage were not procreative, there would be no issue with gays marrying each other but reproducing with people outside of marriage. Likewise: men and women are held to be interchangeable for the child’s needs – “as long as they’re loving” – but of course, “as long as they’re loving” does not make a woman acceptable to a gay man. Another double standard: do relationships matter? All the arguments in favor of gay marriage – experiences, identity, “not living a lie”, and so forth; are these things important? For gay men and lesbians, yes – for their kids, not at all; the kid will be happy to have two moms (this is decided before he is even born, yet held to be the child’s own free choice). And so on: one standard for me, another for thee.
The problem with gay marriage is ultimately that you have to believe there’s a conspiracy of evil Christian people who are motivated by a desire to force everyone to share their fundamentalist Christian faith. As long as kids believe in “Christofascists”, gay marriage will enjoy popular support – but without that fiction, the logic of gay marriage falls apart.
(*an argument that itself relies on the logic that says that because some hetero couples don’t procreate, therefore procreation isn’t a part of marriage, which is a category error – like saying that because some dogs have lost their legs, it is therefore inaccurate to say that dogs are four-legged creatures)
August 9th, 2012 | 8:11 pm
I’ve seen a few polls that have little support for gay marriage by those under the age of 30 and asked my youngest sister (age 23) about it. Her response was, “what’s the point? Marriage is overrated and an unneccesary contract – I think most of us just don’t get why it is an issue or worth the battle.” I think the decline in the value of marriage as a fundamental societal building block is so far eroded that our younger population just doesn’t care much about it at all.
August 9th, 2012 | 10:10 pm
I realize that this article pertains to generational opinions on marriage equality for gays and lesbians, however a larger issue is being ignored. The USA is the only nation on earth that has allowed the public to decide this important civil rights issue via ballot measures. This is a grossly immoral act which violates every principle of our Republic. Ultimately, the majority has no right to determine the civil rights of minorities. Have we learned nothing from the struggles of women for the right to vote or blacks to attend the same schools? Therefore, whatever young people think regarding this issue is irrelevant.
Also to Blake, I found it humorous that you would talk in circles to defend your bigotry towards gay couples. In the words of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia: Procreation has never been a requisite for marriage at any time in any state. To place the burden of procreation solely on gay couples is laughably disingenuous. Procreation and marriage are unrelated except in a Catholic viewpoint. You also insult every heterosexual couple who has adopted children. The fact that they aren’t biological children makes them no less worthy of governmental protections.
August 9th, 2012 | 10:20 pm
Jesse (writes)
“Oh please, Fitzgerald, your questions are no better than coercing children into the support of same-sex marriage (no, that does not belong in quotes). Not to mention your last question actually fits the very definition of discrimination, regardless of the connotation that goes along with the word.”
#1, My point in posting those questions is not to “coerce” children into supporting marriage, rather it is an effort that would demonstrate how shallow and anti-intellectual peoples support of same-sex “marriage” really is. In that vein I think questions along those lines would be interesting an informative no matter what the age of respondents.
#2. “Discrimination” is something the law does as a matter of coarse. Adding “just” or “unjust” allows the3 discerning individual to get to the heart of the matter, rather than obscure the point by using words with pejorative connotations to influence answers.
#3. It is absolutely necessary for fair & informed debate to put marriage in quotes when it is preceded by same-sex or gay or homosexual. Fair minded observers readily admit that this is about the definition of the institution of marriage. To not highlight that in some way (such as the use of quotation marks) is acknowledging this reality. To not do so in some manner is to pretend that the definition is not in contention.
August 9th, 2012 | 11:23 pm
One more thought, could it be a case where the old addage about children being wiser than adults holds true? Blake’s dissertation above to justify discrimination against non-procreative couples can be easily dismissed by my ten year old nephew with one single example. His 67 year old grandmother recently married a 70 year old man and they have no hope of procreating at this stage in their lives. This ten year old grasps that procreation is irrelevant to their marriage, yet adults like Blake can’t apparently grasp the same concept.
August 10th, 2012 | 1:45 am
Dan,
Actually, the European Court of Human Rights has allowed European countries to decide the issue legislatively or democratically.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2117920/Gay-marriage-human-right-European-ruling-torpedoes-Coalition-stance.html
People need to stop mentioning Scalia’s comment about procreation. He was of clouded mind when writing it. He forgot the fundamental principle that rational basis review allows over and under-inclusiveness.
Buried in Blake’s comment is one basic issue; recognizing same-sex marriage sends the message that children do not need a mother and father. Children can develop without one or the other, but the optimal situation is having a parent of each sex. Allowing infertile opposite sex couples to marry has no such effect.
August 10th, 2012 | 8:27 am
Not All Positive has a good point.
In France, 90% of civil unions (PACS) are between opposite-sex couples, who have the option of marriage, if they choose. There is also a long tradition on the Left of denouncing marriage as “bourgeois prostitution,”
Here is a typical assessment: “Everyone can testify to the rations of sadness condensed from year to year in family gatherings, the forced smiles, the awkwardness of seeing everyone pretending in vain, the feeling that a corpse is lying there on the table, and everyone acting as though it were nothing. From flirtation to divorce, from cohabitation to stepfamilies, everyone feels the inanity of the sad family nucleus, but most seem to believe that it would be sadder still to renounce it. The family is no longer so much the suffocation of maternal control or the patriarchy of beatings as it is this infantile abandon to a fuzzy dependency, where everything is familiar,..”
A Belgian lawyer of my acquaintance told me, no doubt with a degree of exaggeration, that, in Belgium nowadays, only the rich, Muslims and gays get married.
Dan
Whilst it may be strictly true that “The USA is the only nation on earth that has allowed the public to decide this important civil rights issue via ballot measures,” the European Court of Human Rights has declared it to be something “within the legislature’s margin of appreciation,” rather than an issue of human rights [Shalk & Kopf v Austria (30141/04) decided on 24 June 2010], so it is plainly something they see as being decided through the electoral process.
August 10th, 2012 | 8:37 am
Ultimately, the majority has no right to determine the civil rights of minorities. Have we learned nothing from the struggles of women for the right to vote or blacks to attend the same schools?
Ultimately, any government that derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed not only will but must decide these issues.
Just because a judge said slavery was legal didn’t make the debate go away. The debate goes away when we reach consensus, and no judge in the world can change that.
When a clear consensus emerges on abortion, it won’t matter what the judges said before; if the consensus is pro-life, the judges will be overwritten.
Judges are not rulers. We do not have a monarchy. There is no human being who has the power to decide on behalf of a democratic republic what the law really is. What would be the source of such authority – his own opinion, or Divine Inspiration?
August 10th, 2012 | 9:01 am
His 67 year old grandmother recently married a 70 year old man and they have no hope of procreating at this stage in their lives.
I see you don’t understand categorical fallacies.
The test we impose on couples is not whether they are going to procreate.
It is whether, if they did, there would be any obstacle to the government recognizing the resulting family as a legitimate and socially acceptable family unit.
Ask your ten year old to explain why incest is disallowed. The answer is, of course, they might procreate – and then the family thus created would be eligible for the procreative benefits of marriage, including but not limited to both recognition and subsidies. We don’t want to do that because we don’t recognize that as a viable family unit.
As I have argued before, gay marriage would not be problematic in this way if gays genuinely believed marriage was not procreative – and therefore did not argue for the right to be accepted as a procreative couple. The two concerns that would have to be addressed:
1) gay marriage would have to see a splitting of benefits, similar to what stepfamilies are expected to endure. The gay partner should rightfully be eligible for ‘life partner’ benefits – but procreative benefits (which include all claims based on breadwinner/caregiver status, as well as the recognition of paternity etc.) should go only to the person one actually procreates with, and gays should accept that they are ethically obligated to share those benefits with their child’s other parent. Children are not transferable goods, and gays rights arguments can’t say that gender is irrelevant without employing a double standard.
2.) It also needs to be recognized that if we grant what is in fact a redefinition of marriage, it is not “bigotry” for religious people to insist that real marriages must be procreative in nature. By this test, whether your old couple is a genuine couple or not is not a question of whether they are beyond the age of childbearing (a question that won’t be relevant until and unless we establish an age at which one is legally prohibited from bearing children), but a question of whether they are open to it.
Because the law has never established an age at which one may be legally classified as too old to have a baby – but if they did, it would be constitutional to do so, because they are regulating processes, not targeting people. By regulating processes in this case I mean establishing a best way to make a family, holding up that best way for state support, and excluding inferior processes from state support (and it should be noted that, contrary to standard Democratic party talking points, not supporting something is not the same as making it illegal).
Regulating processes – right and wrong ways to act – should be recognized as different in kind from what we would be doing if we barred “infertile couples” from marrying, because these “couples” are not infertile: one of the individuals within the couple is. There is no way to ban infertile couples from marrying without creating a special singled-out class of individuals who are deprived of the right to participate in family life on any terms, and regardless of whether they are willing to submit to the family’s best interest or the child’s best interest. There is no reason why couples with infertile individuals in them can’t adopt – indeed, ought to have first priority for adopting, all other criteria being met. Whereas gays could procreate any time they like, and only demand special accommodations because they want to skip the obligations that are normally a part of procreation: specifically, the obligation to support, honor, respect, and be dutiful to the other half of the new child’s family tree (starting with, but not limited to, the child’s other parent).
The available evidence is insufficient, but what does exist suggests strongly that a child born to a gay who has created a legally binding relationship with a member of the opposite sex is better off than a gay who “gives” the child to his lover.
August 10th, 2012 | 10:04 am
I’ve seen this multiple times already. I’m 30 and many of my Catholic friends were supportive of same-sex marriage (state recognized), but then they got married and understood marriage at a theological and philosophical level. They now oppose it, but do so quietly to avoid facebook torture.
August 10th, 2012 | 10:09 am
“This combination of pro-business economics with sexual liberationism—let’s call it Bloombergism—is the new consensus around which the Democratic Party is built.” No, it already has a name: The Libertarian Party. Everyone has seen those Lyndon Larouche guys standing on street corners with anti-Obama signs. They like free enterprise but want their drugs, sex, and rock n roll, and everything decriminalized. Problem is, the libertine lifestyle causes social problems that eventually deplete the freedom and money they crave. Fools.
August 10th, 2012 | 10:43 am
The acid test will occur on November 6, 2012.
However: look at the general trend of lower anti-Gay votes over time. Hawaii and Alaska passed their amendments in 1998 with 68% or 69%. North Carolina passed their amendment in 2012 with 62%. I don’t think anyone would claim NC is more liberal than Hawaii, or more libertarian than Alaska.
California passed prop 22 in 2000 with 62% anti-Gay vote, and the essentially identical prop 8 in 2008 with 52%. You do the math for a revote in 2014.
Bottom line: Unless the anti-Gay side presents greater number of hysterical lies this year than they did in 2008, the amendment will fail in Minnesota, and marriage equality will be affirmed in Washington, Maryland and Maine. Too many people have Gay family, friends and neighbors, and increasing numbers are unwilling to harm those they love. The steady drop in support for bans in opinion polls will eventually be matched at the ballot box.
August 10th, 2012 | 12:40 pm
Too many people have Gay family, friends and neighbors, and increasing numbers are unwilling to harm those they love.
It is not harmful for gay people to not marry. What is harmful is when they do marry and start a family, if their doing so is built on lies.
Like the lie that a child “can have two mommies”. That’s not true – every child has a mother and a father, and forcing a child to pretend that being fatherless is no big deal is harmful. It’s emotional abuse.
Gay marriage arguments fall apart when you stop pretending that gays are the only people with feelings or rights. The truth is, the real problem with gay marriage isn’t that conservatives are telling lies – hysterical or otherwise; it’s the gays who are telling lies: having two mothers is not just as good as having an intact family. If gender were interchangeable gays and lesbians could just marry people of the opposite sex, but there’s more to being a man or a woman – and that’s more true for children, who have distinct and different relationships with same-sex than with opposite-sex parents.
It’s not nice to steal things of value from your kids.
By the way, if your goal in capitalizing the word “gay” was to add dignity or importance, I think you accomplished exactly the reverse (by trying to elevate a word that isn’t a proper noun to proper noun status with such a transparent gimmick).
August 10th, 2012 | 3:30 pm
[...] the the New York Times piece about young people and social conservatism that Matthew Schmitz wrote about here yesterday? On The Corner, Michael J. New weighs in and mentions the (seeming) paradox that young people are [...]
August 11th, 2012 | 12:07 am
Bloombergism. Love it.
August 12th, 2012 | 5:49 pm
Having two mothers is not just as good as having an intact family.
If marriage is simply what our culture/society defines it to be, then presumably having two mummies or daddies would be just as good as any other arrangement, if it were not for the prejudices and hangups of society and especially those unenlightened people who still cling to a religious understanding of sex.
I seem to remember a long time ago paedophiles put forth this kind of argument in favour of recognizing “inter-generational relationships”, but I could be wrong.
August 12th, 2012 | 5:54 pm
Fitzgerald, great points and great rebuttal.
You have just experienced something all too common – let’s call it ‘cognitive divergence’ i.e. as soon as people sense your opinion differs from theirs they abandon any attempt to read and understand your words and snap immediately into ad hominem attacks and/or unsupported claims of moral superiority.
August 12th, 2012 | 7:55 pm
[...] Read More… [...]
August 13th, 2012 | 11:13 am
Having two mothers is not just as good as having an intact family.
If marriage is simply what our culture/society defines it to be, then presumably having two mummies or daddies would be just as good as any other arrangement, if it were not for the prejudices and hangups of society and especially those unenlightened people who still cling to a religious understanding of sex.
If men and women were interchangeable, gay marriage wouldn’t be necessary.
But it turns out they are not interchangeable.
I am old enough to remember the 1970s, when a lot of men were shamed for not being more female-like, and women were more blatantly shamed for not being more male-like. I myself attended a college course where we were all drilled on how gender is this artificial construct, and how the world will be so much better once we force boys and girls into androgyny.
The problem is, reality didn’t cooperate. It turns out that no amount of forcing boys to wear skirts and carry purses will make them into what they are not.
The reason two moms or two dads is not as good is not because society has hangups, but because it turns out there are real and significant differences between same-sex and opposite-sex parent relationships.
A same-sex parent relationship is a role model relationship: this parent teaches you “how to be”. From his father, a boy learns how to be a man. From her mother, a girl learns how to be a woman. Being a man isn’t the same as being a woman. A man can’t teach a girl how to be a woman the way a woman can, and when puberty hits, if the girl is talking to her dad about menstruation on the same level of intimacy as a girl might talk to her mom, the relationship is probably dysfunctional (ditto in reverse the boy who feels perfectly comfortable talking about wet dreams with his mom).
An opposite-sex parent relationship is different in kind. From this parent, a child learns a whole bunch of different things – how to handle those who are not like ourselves; how to interrelate with members of the opposite sex; how to have relationships.
Children need both. But just as importantly, children have reason to value both. To expect them to do without one of these relationships is selfish – not the sort of thing a “loving” person does to someone they “love”. But to expect them to do without one of these relationships and then expect that they’ll back you up when you go around bragging that they don’t care about losing what you’ve stolen from them – that’s just plain toxic-level dysfunctional. That’s not how good parents are.
August 13th, 2012 | 4:36 pm
Bloomberg, Libertarians, and Lyndon LaRouche occupy three very different ideological spaces. LaRouche is practically the opposite of a libertarian.
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