Listing Left

Poll Examines Supreme Court Priorities

Always nice to get a poll that shows the American people aren't universally backward.

Almost two-thirds, 65 percent, are opposed to overturning
Roe v. Wade, but there also is public support for some restrictions on abortion. Almost three-fourths favor requiring women under age 18 to get parental consent before being allowed to get an abortion.

_Just over half of those polled, 53 percent, said they support civil unions for gay people, while 36 percent said they favor gay marriage — a slight increase on both measures from a year ago.

_By almost 2-1, people think it's more important to conduct stem cell research that may result in medical cures, than to avoid destroying potential life of embryos involved in such research.

OK, the fact that three in four Americans favor requiring a pregnant teenager to talk to her parents before having an abortion is a bit dismal--it would be nice if everyone had a family situation that made this feasible, but they don't. And it's sort of sad that two years after Massachusetts only one in three Americans support gay marriage. But 53% support for civil unions means that there's another sixth of the population that can't quite wrap its head around gay marriage, but understands the fundamental issue of fairness at stake. It may take time, but I think by the 2012 election another sixth may join the civil union numbers and we may be at the point where a presidential candidate can propose/support legislation that would recognize civil unions at the federal level without being laughed off the stage.

(Note that I think civil unions are a bunch of BS--separate but equal is never really equal and all that--but would accept them as an intermediate step provided that they have practical value in terms of taxes and inheritance and other legal rights.)

(Note also that in 2012 it will have been eight years since the first gay marriage in Massachusetts and seven since the entire nation of Canada treated gay marriage as the equivalent of any other marriage. Damned accents and blistering cold!)