

Gay marriage: a case study in conformism - porker
http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/13518/

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ZeroGravitas
Bit of a strange article, I think there's a whole bunch of shibboleths/dog-
whistles in there that I don't know so it's sounds a bit like buzzwordy-
gibberish to me.

But on the point about acceptance of gay marraige being a sudden and
inexplicable change unlike anything ever seen, or indeed possible, in a free
state, I was reminded of this article by Nate Silver who says that it's
actually been gaining slowly in support for years and that at least half the
change can be attributed to older folk dying and being replaced by a younger
generation of voters:

[http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/how-
opin...](http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/how-opinion-on-
same-sex-marriage-is-changing-and-what-it-means/)

This has lots on interesting knock-on effects because some states are older
than others, certain ages are more likely to vote etc.

Key conclusion:

"it’s the steadiness of the trend that makes same-sex marriage virtually
unique among all major public policy issues, and which might give its
supporters more confidence that the numbers will continue to break their way".

