Post #9 - The Generational Shift

An interesting article all around. Posted for your convenience.

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USA TODAY
May 21st, 2009

Generations reshape gay marriage debate

WASHINGTON — The debate over same-sex marriage has become one of the country's most generational and regionally divided issues.

Trends suggest the contentious political struggle could fade in the not-too-distant future. The states where same-sex marriage is more tolerated are passing laws allowing it. Younger Americans, more eclectic in their views on social issues and more likely to have friends or family members who are openly gay, are more tolerant of same-sex couples than their parents or grandparents and appear to be more interested in compromise.

Over the last 22 years, attitudes about gay rights have changed significantly, especially among the religious, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Pew found that while support of gay marriage has fallen slightly since 2007 and a narrow majority of Americans still oppose it, those under age 29 are nearly twice as likely to favor same-sex marriage as those over 65 (43 to 24%). And the percentage of all Americans opposed to same-sex marriage has fallen 11 percentage points since 1996.

These findings are some of the more notable trends in Pew's comprehensive "Trends in political values and core attitudes: 1987-2009." Pew surveyed 3,013 adults in late March and early April. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

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Pew found a growing detachment from the two major political parties, no ideological shift toward President Obama and the Democrats now in charge, less concern about social issues than in previous polls, and a rising wariness about the size and cost of government.

One of the most striking results came on the question of whether school boards should be able to fire gay teachers.

In 1987, 73% of white, evangelical Protestants said yes. Only 40% said so this year. There also were large drops among white mainline Protestants (50-25 percent) and white Catholics (42-21 percent) over the same period.

"Even though there has been little change in the number of Americans holding strong religious beliefs," Pew Research Center President Andrew Kohut said, "the percentage with conservative views on social values has been steadily declining over the past two decades."

Jonathan Merritt, 26, an evangelical activist, writer and son of former Southern Baptist Convention President James Merritt, portrays changing attitudes toward gay rights as part of a "broadening of the agenda" among younger evangelicals.

"Now evangelicals who are traditionally very conservative are quite concerned with environmental degradation and human rights and health care," said Merritt, who opposes same-sex marriage but favors "aggressive steps" to protect gay couples from discrimination.

A poll of 2,000 Americans taken last August by Faith in Public Life, a non-profit that promotes faith discussions in politics, found that support of gay marriage among evangelicals aged 18-34 had grown from 17% in 2006 to 24% last year.

"I think the momentum is in favor of redefining marriage in my generation," Merritt said. "I don't think this is an issue that my generation will fight over, at least not with the tenacity that the previous generations did."

But Merritt, citing surveys showing that younger Americans are actually less in favor of abortion rights than their parents or grandparents, says his generation is less likely to view all social issues through a "paradigm mentality" — where a view on one issue proscribes an automatic view on another.

Younger evangelicals, he said, are not softening their views on issues like gay rights over a "sense of rebellion," but as a result of new readings of Scripture and a rejection of old politics. That, he said, indicates attitudes will not change as his generation ages.

"What you are seeing," said Merritt, who also co-chairs a new faith-based group calling for eliminating nuclear weapons, "is not the emergence of the evangelical left. I think you are seeing the emergence of an evangelical stuck-in-the-middle."

Connecticut, Maine, Iowa and Massachusetts allow same-sex marriage. Vermont will follow in September. New Hampshire's state legislature is debating whether to become the sixth state to do so. California's Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage a year ago this month, but voters in November amended the state Constitution to ban gay marriage.

It's no accident that much of the legislative activity is in the Northeast.

Pew found that 52% of Americans in the East — from the mid-Atlantic seaboard to Maine — favor gay marriage, and 65% are in support of civil unions, significantly higher than other regions, For instance, 26% of Southerners favor same-sex marriages, and 46% favor civil unions.

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What do you think about this article? Did it seem biased? How do you feel about the source? Did it present the issue effectively? What's your opinion on this subject?

Thanks,
Sofie