Prop 8 by Age
James Hanley on Nov 5th 2008
A particularly painful battle appears to have been lost. But demographically, it appears the war is still winnable.
| Age | Yes | No |
|
18-24 (11%)
|
34% | 66% |
| 25-29 (9%) | 40% | 60% |
| 30-39 (17%) | 50% | 50% |
| 40-49 (22%) | 58% | 42% |
| 50-64 (25%) | 50% | 50% |
| 65 and up (16%) | 59% | 41% |
Filed in The Basement
The hump in the 40s is interesting. Why should a 40-something be that much more likely to favour
stupidityprop 8 than a 30-something or a 50-something?I think maybe at 50 people go through their mid-life crises and decide its time to change and liberalize a bit. And then they hit 65, their brains crust over, and they can’t abide change of any kind anymore. :-)
What this shows us is that if the age cohort maintains its ideological stance over time, change is inevitable. That’s a good thing.
I see a trend toward increasingly liberal thought with a liberal-anomaly for people who had part of their formative years in the 60s. This seems to lend credence to the idea that people stick with their stances as they age, and that becoming “conservative” with age is only becoming conservative relative to a liberalizing society.
I hope so, anyway.
I suspect the hump in the 40s is a fluke. This is from an exit poll, and there may have been a skewed sample.
Highly scientific, exceedingly rigorous speculation here, but I wonder if that hump in the 40’s age group might also reflect the age of parents whose own children are still exploring their sexuality? Are parents of teenagers any more nervous about homosexuality than other folks?
Where did you get this data? Is this for all of California or just parts of it (and which parts)? Do you have similar breakdowns along other demographic lines (gender, religion, race, political affiliation, etc)? I’d like to find out more.
The data tells me that the naivety and ignorance of youth blinds them to the societal ailments of homosexual marriage and once they mature and have sufficient life experience they recognize the truth. I expect that the younger generation will experience a similar maturing and awakening and that this distribution will be representative of future distributions as well.
OlderAndWiser - (The name is definitely debatable) As a 40+ person with significant life experience, I still believe as I did in my naive 20s that homosexuality is not a societal ailment. I may have changed my views on economics, how I dress, and my priorities, but when it comes to my views on homosexuality, there will be no “awakening or maturing” since in this case there is no need or desire to warrant it. Allowing homosexual marriage will not threaten my 17 year marriage or how I live my life. There is no “truth” to denying rights to people. To your dismay I am teaching my children (I have three) that homosexuality is both healthy and normal. I hope that you are not to old to see that we may have lost this battle but I firmly believe that the time is coming soon that homosexuals will gain the simple societal rights that many of us take for granted.
Thanks, olderandwiser. Without your comment, I mightn’t have written this last night:
“I hope, and I believe, that in my lifetime, the idea of prohibiting
same-sex marriage will seem as off-base to a majority of Americans as the
idea of prohibiting mixed-race marriages does now.
It’s only been 40 years since that one was on the books. Probably less in
some states.
And exit polls give reason to take heart. Voters ages 20-29 wouldn’t have
passed Amendment 2 in Florida. Voters ages 20-29 wouldn’t have passed
Prop 8 in California, and voters ages 30-39 were evenly split. The cynics
and the fearful will say that people get more conservative as they get
older, and that those numbers reflect nothing more than the idealism and
naivete of youth. I don’t believe that. I believe many people get more
economically conservative as they get older, and some get more socially
conservative as well — where social and economic policy intersect,
anyway. But I truly believe that my generation’s children will take
another step in the direction of acceptance. And then we’ll really be
getting somewhere.
So yes, I am angry. But I remain hopeful. And I will try to meet fear
with love.”
Alan,
From CNN.com. The data is from exit polls, and there is more here.
OlderAndWiser,
The flaw in your argument is assuming individual change rather than generational change. I am sure we can all agree that people who are 60+ now did not have a positive view of homosexuality 40 years ago when they were in their 20s. The 1960s were not a gay friendly time–the gay rights movement is often dated from 1969, when gay bar goers in New York finally fought back against the cops who came in to bust them up just for being gay. They received little sympathy from people who were then in their 20s-40s, so your “naive youth is gay friendly argument” just doesn’t hold up.
For myself, I was not gay friendly at all when I was in my late teens, early 20s, and the same is true for many of my acquaintances. Only as we have come to know gay people have we become more supportive of their rights. So to the extent there is individual change, I am strongly inclined to think it works the opposite direction as you do.
And I would note that I am happily married (17 years), and I support same-sex marriage. There are no social ills from it, only social gains–the same gains that accrue from opposite-sex marriage. Notably, you’ve simply made a vague claim of social ills, rather than actually making a logical argument for any particular social ill. That’s a standard gambit of anti-gay bigots.
My comfort is in knowing that my side will win on this issue. There is no other issue on which I say that. May god bless you with long enough life to see it come to pass, and to see how few social ills come from it. Or you could just study Massachusetts, and see how little has changed their since they legalized it.
OlderandWiser, we can’t wait for your type to die.
No offense. You held back black people from trying to marry whites (and your grandparents and great-grandparents held back blacks from even marrying blacks in the time of slavery). Your undying hatred of anything not like you is, frankly, getting old.