This is Why I Don’t Believe Polls on Same-Sex Marriage By PETER WOLFGANG for The Stream
Disney’s recent movie Strange World and the summer’s Lightyear both bombed at the box office. The Wall Street Journal recently called this “an unusual record for a company long considered a guaranteed hitmaker in children’s entertainment.”
It was more than that. The Wall Street Journal won’t tell you one of the big reasons the two films bombed. It’s the same reason Bros — the movie whose poster showed two men grabbing each other’s buttocks — bombed. Few Americans go to the theatre to see same-sex relationships promoted.
And this is why I don’t believe the polls showing such a huge shift in support of same-sex marriage in the seven years since Obergefell. The practice has gained support from a solid majority of our political class, as the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act shows. But it doesn’t have so much support from everyone else.
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What People Don’t Tell Pollsters
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t dispute that there has been some shift. And I don’t dispute that large numbers of people tell pollsters they are now cool with same-sex marriage. I just don’t think they are telling the truth.
Show me a poll that says a majority supports abortion at some point, at least in the first trimester, and I will believe you. Show me a poll that says there has been a huge sea-change in favor of same-sex marriage in the last seven years and I will not believe you.
There has been some change, of course. The law is a teacher. The more something is practiced, the more people get used to it. America is more accepting of same-sex marriage today than it was when such unions were forbidden.
But I still don’t believe the claims about the great change in American beliefs. Why?
Because same-sex marriage is unlike any other issue in our public life. There is no other issue — not even a controversial one, like abortion or gun control — where you will be punished for not supporting it. If you register any sort of dissent on same-sex marriage, it could cost you your job. If not your promotion or your next pay raise.
